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McCabe,  Joseph,  1867-1955. 
St.  Augustine  and  his  age 


By  JOSEPH  McCABE 


peter  Bbelarfc 

8°.     (By  mail,  $2.20)   .    net,  $2.00 

St.  Bugusttne  an&  bis  Uqc 

8°.     (By  mail,  $2.20)    .   net,  $2.00 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW   YORK  LONDON 


St.  Augustine 


And  His  Age 


By 


Joseph  McCabe 


Author  of  "  Peter  Abelard,"  etc. 


G.  P.  Putnam's   Sons 
New  York  and  London 

XTbe  fmicfterbocfeer  press 

1903 


Copyright,  1902 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Published,  December,  1902 


TTbe  IKnfcfterbocfter  tpress,  "flew  JPorlt 


To 
LESLIE  STEPHEN 

IN    GRATEFUL    REGARD 


Preface 

'T'HIS  work  is  an  attempt  to  interpret  the  life 
of  one  of  the  most  famous  saints  of  the 
Christian  Church  by  the  light  of  psychology 
rather  than  by  that  of  theology.  There  are 
many  biographies  of  St.  Augustine— though 
our  own  literature  is  singularly  poor  in  this 
respect  —  but  all  are  constructed  on  the 
perverse  type  which  is  followed  by  Augus- 
tine himself  in  his  seductive  Confessions. 
When  one  brings  to  the  story  a  saving  tinc- 
ture of  Pelagianism,  the  distribution  of  light 
and  shade  seems  to  fall  under  more  famil- 
iar laws.  1  have  tried  to  exhibit  the  devel- 
opment of  Augustine  as  an  orderly  mental 
and  moral  growth,  and  to  present  it  in  har- 
monious relation  to  the  many  other  inter- 
esting figures  and   groups  on   the  broad 

canvas  of  his  age. 

J.  McC. 

June,  1902. 


Contents 


CHAPTER 
I. 

Life  in  Roman  Africa  . 

PAGE 

II. 

The  Third  City  of  the  Empire    . 

26 

III. 

Mental  Growth  .... 

52 

IV. 

The  Eternal  City 

8l 

V. 

The  Old  Gods  and  the  New 

IOI 

VI. 

Light  from  the  East  . 

132 

VII. 

Conversion 

164 

VIII. 

Return  to  Africa 

193 

IX. 

The  Bishop  of  Hippo   . 

.     225 

X. 

The  Daily  Task  .... 

249 

XI. 

Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism 

.    284 

XII. 

The  Dying  of  Paganism 

■  325 

XIII. 

Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome 

.  348 

XIV. 

The  Works  of  Augustine    . 

•    375 

XV. 

Augustine  and  Pelagius 

.    410 

XVI. 

Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years    . 

450 

XVII. 

A  Saddened  Termination     . 

.     482 

Bibliography        .        . 

■     505 

Index 

.     w 

w 


St.  Augustine 


Chapter  I 
Life  in  Roman  Africa 

A  URELIUS  AUGUSTINUS,  known  to  all 
^*  time  as  St.  Augustine  of  Hippo,  was 
born  at  Thagaste  (now  Souk-Arras,  in  Al- 
geria) about  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century. 
A  glance  at  the  map  of  Africa  discovers  a 
strip  of  territory  of  singular  situation  on  its 
north-west  border.  Isolated  from  the  rest 
of  the  continent  by  a  range  of  lofty  mount- 
ains that  extends  from  Tunis  to  the  Atlantic, 
its  broad  and  fertile  plains  open  to  the  breath 
of  the  great  sea  which  was  the  heart  of  the 
world  for  so  many  ages,  it  seems  to  have 
been  prepared  by  nature  as  the  theatre  of 
some  thrilling  national  life.     It  seems  as 


2  St.  Augustine 

though  it  should  have  a  natural  immunity 
from  the  curse  of  Cham.  Yet  in  the  story 
of  the  nations,  that  richly  endowed  territory 
has  ever  played  the  part  of  a  dependency. 
Very  early  in  history  the  Phenicians  wrested 
it  from  its  native  population,  and  built  up 
the  kingdom  of  Carthage  on  its  fruitful  soil. 
Rome  made  utter  wreck  of  their  work,  and 
in  its  turn  created  a  dependent  African 
kingdom.  In  the  fifth  century  a  Teutonic 
race  swept  over  it  from  the  west ;  in  the 
seventh  the  Arabs  poured  over  it  from  the 
east.  And  the  modern  traveller  finds  him- 
self wandering  in  a  vast  world  of  tombs, 
from  which  the  last  degenerate  sons  of  the 
Prophet  are  emerging  at  the  bidding  of  a 
new  conqueror. 

In  the  fourth  century  this  strip  of  the  Af- 
rican coast  was  one  of  the  most  important 
"dioceses"  of  the  Western  Empire.  Far 
away  towards  the  crests  of  the  Atlas  a  Ro- 
man legion  protected  it  from  the  Libyan 
tribes  of  the  mountains  and  the  desert.  The 
natural  frontier  formed  by  the  steep  southern 
face  of  the  mountains  was  guarded  by  a 


Life  in  Roman  Africa  3 

long  chain  of  forts  and  signal-towers.  The 
soldiers  were  generously  endowed  with  gifts 
of  land,  and  had  intermarried  with  the  more 
peaceful  of  the  Libyans.  Only  when  the 
signal-fire  glared  from  the  towers,  telling 
that  some  fierce  band  of  Getulians  had  crept 
through  the  passes  in  search  of  slaves  and 
booty,  the  bronzed  veterans  formed  up  at 
the  camps,  to  guard  the  sacred  ''peace  of 
Rome."  Usually  they  looked  down  from 
their  forts  and  hill-towns  on  the  merry, 
thoughtless  life  of  "the  soul  of  the  empire," 
as  Salvianus  calls  Roman  Africa.  The  land 
fell  in  a  series  of  broad  plateaus,  with  steep 
ridges,  down  to  the  shore  of  the  Mediterra- 
nean. Large  and  beautiful  towns,  frequently 
models  of  Rome  in  African  marble,  met  the 
eye  at  intervals,  connected  by  the  famous 
imperishable  Roman  roads.  The  country 
was  divided  into  immense  estates,  which 
were  chiefly  in  the  hands  of  the  emperor 
or  of  senatorial  families.  Day  after  day  the 
slaves  and  the  native  Libyans,  reduced  to 
the  condition  of  labourers,  or  tenant-farm- 
ers, or  small  proprietors,  toiled  under  the 


4  St.  Augustine 

fierce  African  sun  in  the  endless  corn-fields, 
to  feed  the  proud  idlers  of  distant  Rome, — 

"Qui  saturant  urbem  circo  scenaeque  vacantem," 

as  Juvenal  reminded  his  fellow-citizens  one 
day.  Here  and  there  the  villa  of  some  pro- 
vincial senator  could  be  seen,  unimpressive 
without,  but  equipped  with  extreme  luxury 
within;  and  hundreds  of  villages  were  scat- 
tered over  what  is  now  the  wilderness  of 
Algeria  and  Tunis.1 

Thagaste  was  a  small  and  unimportant 
municipiiim  of  Numidia  (the  eastern  half  of 
modern  Algeria).  It  lay  about  fifty  miles 
to  the  south  of  Hippo  (near  the  actual 
Bona),  on  the  first  of  the  great  plateaus 
which  ascended  by  steps  from  the  sea.  The 
distinction  of  the  municipium  and  the  colonia 
had  become  one  of  name  only  in  the  fourth 
century;  they  were  equally  protected,  and 
equally  plundered,  by  Rome.  Each  town 
had  its  self-contained  municipal  machinery; 
and,  provided  the  taxes  were  paid  regularly 

1  See  G.  Boissier's  Roman  Africa,  and   Davis's  Ruined  Cities  of 
Numidia. 


Life  in  Roman  Africa  5 

into  the  imperial  treasury,  and  the  corn- 
ships  sailed  in  due  season  for  Ostia,  it  was 
left  to  regulate  its  own  local  life.  The 
ordinary  municipal  officers,  the  curiales  or 
decuriones,  had  usually  inherited  the  office 
from  their  fathers,  and  they  chose  the  higher 
magistrates  from  their  number.  The  barbar- 
ous fiscal  system1  of  Rome,  which  had  laid 
a  collective  responsibility  for  the  imperial 
taxes  on  these  curials,  was  already  ruining 
the  class, — the  middle  class  of  the  empire, 
the.  "nerves  of  the  commonwealth,"  as 
Majorian  termed  them, —  and  sapping  the 
economic  foundation  of  the  empire.  In  the 
legislation  of  the  fourth  century  we  find 
them  fleeing  in  despair  from  their  hereditary 
"honour";  we  find  the  imperial  officers 
pursuing  them  into  the  army,  into  the  serv- 
ice of  the  palace,  into  the  lands  of  the 
barbarians,  into  the  slave-huts  of  the  peas- 
antry, even  into  the  monasteries  of  the 
desert,  and  dragging  them  back  to  their 
curia;  we  find  men  forced  to  assume  the 
uncoveted  honour  as  soon  as  they  have 

1  Hodgkin's  Italy  and  her  Invaders. 


6  St.  Augustine 

acquired  property  enough  to  share  the 
financial  burden.  The  weight  of  imperial 
taxation,  added  to  the  municipal  charge, 
was  crushing  them  to  the  earth. 

For,  in  the  economy  of  a  Roman  town, 
the  financial  burden  fell  upon  this  hereditary 
class  of  curials  and  the  higher  officials.  Thus 
it  was  that,  before  the  burden  of  taxation 
became  excessive  and  the  class  reduced,  the 
towns  of  Africa  were  enriched  with  many  a 
beautiful  structure.  The  modern  traveller 
in  Algeria  still  finds  a  noble  arch  of  marble 
welcoming  him  amidst  the  mounds  of  ruin 
that  were  once  a  Roman  town.  Other 
towns  had  a  forum  with  columns  of  marble 
and  sculptured  portico,  a  vast  amphitheatre, 
a  circus,  an  ornate  temple.  All  had  public 
baths  with  wide  colonnades,  spacious  gam- 
ing -  rooms,  luxury  upon  luxury.  The 
duumvir  had  to  prove  his  generosity  on 
his  election,  to  spend  fabulous  sums  on  the 
decoration  of  the  town  and  the  amusement 
of  its  inhabitants.  In  the  villages,  no  doubt, 
life  was  hard  enough.  The  villager  yoked 
his  wife  and  his  ass  to  his  plough  in  the 


Life  in  Roman  Africa  7 

early  morn— as  Pliny  found  him  in  the  first 
century  and  Tissot  in  the  nineteenth— and 
laboured  the  livelong  day  in  as  happy  an  ig- 
norance of  economics  as  that  of  the  modern 
Indian  ryot.  For  the  townsman  life  was 
pleasant.  Augustine  summed  it  up  con- 
temptuously at  a  later  date  as  spectare, 
contendere,  manducare,  bibere,  conaimbere, 
dormire.  So  it  seemed  to  them  also.  A 
few  years  ago  explorers  cleared  the  floor 
of  the  forum  in  the  ruins  of  Thamugade. 
On  one  of  the  slabs,  which  seems  to  have 
been  used  as  a  gaming-table,  there  was  the 
inscription — 


VENARI 

LAVARI 

LUDERE 

RIDERE 

OCC  EST 

VIVERE 

Their  life  was  a  remote  imitation  of  that  of 
great  Rome.  There  was,  in  truth,  more 
work  done  in  Africa.  It  was  only  at  Rome 
and  Constantinople,  and  possibly  Antioch 
and  Alexandria,  that  strong  men  held  out 
a  shameless  hand  for  public  rations.  But 
with  their  baths  and  circuses  and  panto- 
mimes,   their    ignorance    of  politics,  their 


8  St.  Aueustine 


23 


genial  gods  and  goddesses,  the  Afro-Romans 
led  a  merry  life,  while  the  legions  kept  their 
eternal  watch  on  the  hills.  The  shadow  of 
the  cross  had  fallen  on  the  land,  it  is  true, 
but  for  the  vast  majority  it  as  yet  provided 
only  another  amusement  and  distraction. 
It  has  been  calculated '  that  the  Christians 
formed  about  two  and  a  half  per  cent  of 
the  population  of  Roman  Africa  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  fourth  century.  Salvianus 
puts  them  in  a  minority  even  in  the  fifth 
century.  But  it  is  clear  from  Augustine's 
sermons  that  a  large  proportion  of  them 
were  nominal  Christians  only.  Africa  still 
looked  rather  to  the  smile  of  Astarte  than 
to  the  frown  of  Jehovah.  Even  in  Augus- 
tine's greatest  days  he  found  his  basilica 
almost  empty,  as  he  sadly  complains, 
when  his  services  coincided  with  the  Saturn- 
alia or  the  Floralia.2 

In  addition,  the  African  Church  at  that 
time  offered  the  pagan  observers  the  novel 

1  See  Schultze's  Geschichte  des  Untergaugs  des  Heide nt hums. 

2  It  is  very  misleading  to  estimate  the  Christian  population  from  the 
number  of  bishops,  as  is  done  sometimes.  A  bishop  might  be  no 
more  than  a  village  pastor,  as  will  appear  afterwards. 


Life  in  Roman  Africa  9 

and  interesting  spectacle  of  a  religious 
schism.  Africa  had  hitherto  been  of  an  ac- 
commodating temper  in  matters  of  theo- 
logy. It  had  given  a  generous  reception 
to  the  deities  imported  by  the  Punic  in- 
vaders, and  had  readily  transformed  Baal- 
Hammon  into  Saturn,  and  Astarte  into 
a  kind  of  amalgamation  of  Juno,  Venus, 
Diana,  Minerva,  and  Ceres,  out  of  compli- 
ment to  the  Romans.  It  was,  therefore, 
not  a  little  perplexed  when  the  enterprising 
sect  of  the  Christians  suddenly  fell  into  two 
bitterly  hostile  sections.  It  looked  on  with 
amusement  at  the  setting  up  of  rival  basili- 
cas and  bishops,  listened  with  interest  to 
the  loud  public  discussions  of  the  morals  of 
each  other's  clergy,  and  lent  a  friendly  hand 
in  the  sanguinary  encounters  with  which 
arguments  were  very  frequently  enforced. 
And  the  root  of  all  this  unusual  excitement 
was  — as  far  as  the  pagan  could  gather 
from  the  ballads  which  they  flung  at  each 
other  across  the  forum  — not  even  a  ques- 
tion of  deities,  but  merely  a  dispute  whether 
the  lustral  water  blessed  by  the  bishops  of 


io  St.  Augustine 

one  faction  was  more  efficacious  than  that 
of  their  rivals.1 

Such  was  the  world  into  which  Augus- 
tine was  admitted  on  the  13th  of  November, 
354.  A  few  years  before  his  birth  Thagaste 
had  seen  the  defeat  of  the  local  schismatics 
and  the  triumph  of  the  orthodox  party.  A 
few  strokes  of  the  imperial  whip  had  opened 
minds  which  had  been  inaccessible  to  argu- 
ment or  grace  for  some  thirty-five  years. 
Yet  the  Christian  community  was  poor  and 
inconsiderable.  Augustine's  mother,  Mon- 
ica, was  a  Christian  ;  and,  although  she 
seems  to  have  shown  no  particular  zeal  in 
his  early  years,  it  is  possible  that  her  later 
devotion  had  some  indirect  influence  on  the 
course  of  his  development.  Augustine  is 
obviously  troubled  in  his  Confessions  about 
her  earlier  neglect,  yet  he  has  depicted  her 
as  a  woman  of  exceptionally  religious  char- 
acter. Her  husband,  Patricius,  was  an  Afro- 
Roman  of  the  usual  type.  Very  irascible 
and  very  generous,  unrestrained  by  religious 

1  The  Donatist  schism,  of  which  1  give  here  the  pagan  impression, 
will  be  explained  at  a  later  stage. 


Life  in  Roman  Africa  n 

convictions  or  by  the  Christian  view  of 
conjugal  duty,  he  is  said  to  have  yielded  to 
his  wife's  importunity  and  to  have  accepted 
the  restrictions  of  Christianity,  like  so  many 
others,  when  his  earthly  life  seemed  to  be 
drawing  to  a  close.  He  was  a  curial  of  his 
native  town,  but  of  small  fortune.  Possibly 
some  ancestor  of  his  had  been  honoured 
with  the  higher  magistracy,  an  elevation 
which  had  ruined  many  a  curial  patrimony. 
Even  small  towns  exacted  a  heavy  fee  for 
such  a  promotion,  and  the  duumvir  who 
did  not  in  addition  erect  a  permanent  me- 
morial of  his  gratitude  in  the  town  might 
expect  some  discomfort.  The  charge  was 
hereditary:  Augustine  escaped  it  by  becom- 
ing a  teacher,  and  thus  secured  the  liberty 
to  dispose  of  his  property,  which  was  rigor- 
ously denied  to  the  unhappy  curial.  A 
brother  and  a  sister,  barely  mentioned  by 
Augustine,  complete  the  circle  of  his  family. 
We  will  not  follow  Augustine  in  his  stern 
inquiry  into  his  behaviour  as  an  infant.  In- 
deed, even  he,  with  all  his  sorry  eagerness 
to  arraign  his  earlier  self,  can  only  conclude 


12  St.  Augustine 

that  he  shared  the  vices  of  infants  in  gen- 
eral. His  earliest  recollections  refer,  natur- 
ally, to  his  school-days.  The  Roman  boy 
usually  began  to  learn  his  letters  at  the  age 
of  five  or  six.  Frequently  the  mother  taught 
him  first  to  identify  the  ivory  letters,  and 
draw  the  style  across  the  waxed  tablet,  and 
count  the  beads  on  the  abacus.  But  if  his 
father  were  not  of  the  wealthy  class  that 
hired  private  tutors,  he  was  soon  conducted 
by  his  pedagogue  (not  the  teacher,  but  the 
slave  who  accompanied  him  to  school)  to 
the  elementary  school.  The  calculo  or  lit- 
er ator,  as  the  "first  master  "was  called, 
earned  a  slender  salary  by  his  instructions 
in  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic.  An 
open  porch,  with  perhaps  sheets  of  canvas 
stretched  from  column  to  column  at  the 
sides,  generally  served  as  his  establishment. 
There  the  little  boys  and  girls  sat  together 
on  the  benches,  and  sang  their  "twice 
two  are  four" — that  "odious  refrain,"  said 
Augustine,  later  —  pretty  much  as  they  have 
done  until  recent  years.  Corporal  punish- 
ment was  by  no  means  discouraged,  and 


Life  in  Roman  Africa  13 

little  Augustine  seems  to  have  made  a  close 
acquaintance  with  the  strap  and  rod  and 
ferule.  He  felt  little  attraction  for  the  early 
lessons,  and  a  game  at  ball  at  undue  seasons 
brought  him  many  a  thrashing.  In  naive 
imitation  of  his  elders,  who  he  said  after- 
wards, call  the  child's  games  "trifles"  and 
their  own  trifles  "business,"  he  used  to 
persevere  with  his  game,  and  then  beg  the 
Deity  to  save  him  from  the  natural  penalty. 
If  we  are  to  believe  the  Confessions,  the 
shadow  of  coming  sins  was  already  upon 
the  boy.  He  is  at  much  pains  to  discover 
the  play  of  his  criminal  instincts  in  his  boy- 
hood. Most  of  us  will  find  a  not  unfamiliar 
corruption  in  his  early  misdeeds.  He  not 
only  neglected  his  lessons  for  play,  but  he 
cheated  his  companions  sometimes.  He 
used  to  steal  comestibles  from  the  house, 
either  for  his  own  consumption  or  to  bribe 
other  boys  in  the  interest  of  his  games.  The 
British  boy  of  the  twentieth  century  is  said 
to  have  somewhat  similar  vices.  Still,  one 
can  follow  Augustine  with  amiable  sympathy 
when  the  recollection  leads  him  to  enlarge 


14  St.  Augustine 

on  the  alleged  innocence  of  childhood.  "  It 
was  a  symbol  of  humility  that  Thou  didst 
mark  in  the  stature  of  the  child  when  Thou 
didst  say:  'Of  such  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.'"1 

When  Augustine  passed  from  the  literator 
to  the  school  of  the  literatus,  or  grammati- 
cus,  he  began  to  feel  the  attraction  of  learn- 
ing, and  to  earn  praise  as  "a  youth  of 
promise."  The  grammarian  was  a  teacher 
of  a  different  type  altogether  from  the  ele- 
mentary master.  His  school,  with  the  cur- 
tains hanging  impressively  over  the  entrance, 
was  an  important  institution  in  the  forum. 
The  municipality  was  bound  to  provide  him 
with  a  permanent  salary,  in  addition  to  the 
fees  and  gifts  he  received  from  the  pupils. 
Though  his  instruction  was  covered  by  the 
general  title  of  grammar,  it  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  say  that  this  meant  much  more  than 
the  study  which  bears  that  name  to-day. 
Beginning  with  the  study  of  the  great  Latin 
writers,  much  as  it  is  conducted  in  our  own 
schools  to-day,  the  grammarian  went  on  to 

1  Confessions,  i.,  20. 


Life  in  Roman  Africa  15 

add  all  the  liberal  arts  which  were  likely  to 
aid  in  the  elucidation  of  the  text.  Even 
in  Africa  Latin  was  the  every-day  language 
of  the  pupils ;  Punic  was  confined  to  the 
poorer  classes  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
Church  had  frequently  some  difficulty  in 
finding  pastors  who  spoke  the  native  tongue. 
The  task  of  the  grammarian  was,  therefore, 
something  more  than  a  mere  interpretation 
of  the  text  of  Virgil  and  Horace.  Every 
allusion  to  history,  mythology,  or  science 
had  to  be  followed  to  its  source.  Music, 
geometry,  astronomy,  and  philosophy  (to 
some  extent)  had  to  be  imparted  to  the  pu- 
pil. In  all  this  Augustine  found  a  congenial 
occupation,  and  he  made  rapid  progress  in 
the  study  of  the  classics.  Few  will  sympa- 
thise with  his  complaint  in  after  years  of  the 
tears  he  shed  over  Dido's  sorrows.  Apart 
from  the  culture  in  humane  feeling  which 
they  gave  him,  and  which  proved  a  saving 
grace  in  the  temptations  of  his  later  ecclesi- 
astical career,  it  would  be  difficult  to  say 
how  largely  his  influence  was  due  to  his 
training  in  grammar  and  rhetoric. 


1 6  St.  Augustine 

With  the  study  of  Greek,  however,  Au- 
gustine made  little  progress.  "  I  know  not 
why  I  disliked  Greek,"  he  says.  The  reason 
is  obvious  enough.  As  a  boy,  at  all  events, 
he  disliked  effort  and  drudgery.  He  had 
mastered  the  elements  of  Latin  with  some 
affliction,  and  it  was  natural  that  he  should 
find  an  even  greater  disinclination  for  the 
elements  of  Greek.  But  the  study  of  Greek 
was  already  falling  into  decay  in  the  Western 
Empire.  A  few  youths  still  made  their  way 
to  Athens,— to  be  fought  for  by  the  crowd 
of  touts  at  the  Piraeus,  and  enticed  from 
master  to  master  by  dainty  dinners  and 
pretty  maids, — and  a  few  Greek  sophists 
still  lingered  in  the  West.  But  Greek  was 
ceasing  to  be  the  centre  of  the  work  of  the 
grammarian  and  the  rhetorician.  None  the 
less,  Augustine  laboriously  acquired  an  ele- 
mentary knowledge  of  it,  and  in  later  years 
he  greatly  improved  his  Greek.  He  handles 
the  Greek  text  of  Scripture  with  confidence 
in  his  writings  ;  though  he  says  in  the 
dialogue  with  Petilianus  (in  398)  that  he 
''knows  little  or  no  Greek,"  and  admits  in 


Life  in  Roman  Africa  17 

his  De  Trinitate  (1 1 1.,  i.)  that  he  is  quite  un- 
able to  read  the  works  of  the  Greek  Fathers 
on  the  Trinity.1 

The  third  and  last  stage  of  the  ordinary 
Roman  education — I  mean,  setting  aside  the 
few  who  were  sent  from  the  provinces  to 
the  imperial  schools  at  Rome  —  was  the 
study  of  rhetoric.  Charged  with  a  more  or 
less  extensive  knowledge  of  literature,  his- 
tory, and  mathematics,  the  young  pupil 
was  passed  on  to  the  rhetorician  for  a  severe 
training  in  the  art  of  declamation.  Mr.  Dill 
has  admirably  shown 2  that  Roman  culture 
in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  had  a  purely 
formal  and  superficial  aim.  There  was  little 
love  of  knowledge  for  its  own  sake,  still 
less  of  earnest  philosophic  inquiry.  Not 
only  was  the  Roman  mind  wholly  differ- 
ent from  the  Greek  in  its  outlook  on  life  and 
in  its  receptiveness,  but  the  Romans  had 
the  disadvantage  of  approaching  the  higher 

1  The  claim  that  he  ever  learned  Hebrew  is  quite  indefensible.  He 
points  out  once  or  twice  the  similarity  of  Punic  and  Hebrew,  but  he 
does  not  exhibit  a  knowledge  of  more  than  an  occasional  word. 

2  See    his  Roman  Society  in  the  Last   Century   of  the   Western 

Empire. 

2 


1 8  St.  Augustine 

problems  only  after  a  prolonged  Greek  effort 
seemed  to  have  proved  their  insolubility. 
It  was  a  sceptic  who  brought  philosophy  to 
Rome.  By  the  fourth  century  even  such 
philosophic  work  as  the  earlier  Latins  had 
accomplished  was  retiring  within  an  ever- 
narrowing  circle.  The  aim  of  the  average 
cultured  Roman  was  to  afford  a  kind  of 
dainty  intellectual  entertainment,  either  by 
elaborately  wrought  epistles,  in  which  con- 
tent was  almost  a  matter  of  no  consideration, 
or  by  rhetorical  discourse.  Hence  the  teacher 
of  rhetoric  held  the  first  place  in  the  educa- 
tional world.  When  Gratian,  in  376,  fixed 
the  salary  which  the  municipalities  were  to 
pay  their  teachers,  he  awarded  twenty-four 
annonce  to  the  rhetor  and  only  twelve  to 
the  grammarian.  A  skilful  rhetorician  not 
only  made  a  considerable  income,  and  was 
received  with  deference  in  the  highest  so- 
cial spheres,  but  he  had  the  popularity 
which  now  falls  to  the  lot  of  a  distinguished 
actor.  When  it  was  announced  that  a 
rhetorician  of  repute  was  to  deliver  a  pane- 
gyric or  some  other  discourse  in  the  theatre, 


Life  in  Roman  Africa  19 

intense  excitement  was  caused,  and  eager 
crowds  filled  the  benches ;  after  a  speech 
which  repels  the  modern  mind  by  its  turgid 
flattery  and  strained  employment  of  an  out- 
worn mythology  he  would  be  escorted  to 
his  home  in  triumph. 

Thus  the  training  in  rhetoric  demanded 
especial  care;  and  as  Augustine  was  destined 
for  the  bar  there  was  additional  reason  for 
discretion.  He  was  sent  for  the  purpose  to 
Madaura,  about  twenty  miles  to  the  south 
of  Thagaste,  one  of  the  most  important 
centres  of  Roman  influence  and  culture  in 
the  province  of  Numidia,  and  the  birthplace 
of  Apuleius  in  the  second  century. 

The  removal  from  the  influence  of  his 
mother  must  have  been  of  some  importance 
in  the  development  of  Augustine's  mind. 
Thagaste  was  a  comparatively  Christian 
town,  and  would  offer  little  resistance  to  the 
religious  training  which  Monica  was  sure  to 
give  and  which  Patricius  made  no  effort  to 
impair.  At  quite  an  early  age  Augustine 
had  been  marked  with  the  preliminary 
rites  of  the  Church  by  his  mother  during  a 


20  St.  Augustine 

sudden  and  serious  illness.  As  he  had  re- 
covered, his  baptism  was  deferred  until,  to 
put  it  bluntly,  he  had  sown  the  inevitable 
wild  oats.  That  was  a  custom  of  the  early 
Christians  which  was  grounded  on  a  rather 
mechanical  view  of  the  operation  of  baptis- 
mal grace.  But  he  continued  to  attend 
church  with  the  catechumens,  even  after 
going  to  Carthage.  Had  he  remained  in  a 
small  town,  where  the  old  religion  had 
little  power  and  ceremonial  glamour,  the 
story  of  his  later  development  might  have 
been  less  romantic. 

Madaura  was  an  essentially  pagan  town. 
I  shall  deal  more  fully  in  a  later  chapter 
with  the  relation  of  the  two  religions,  but  it 
is  necessary  to  point  out  here  that  Augus- 
tine passed  in  his  fourteenth  year,  or  there- 
abouts, into  a  wholly  pagan  atmosphere. 
He  did  not  remain  there  long,  and  it  is 
probable  that  he  lived  with  relatives,  whom 
he  mentions  in  a  later  writing ;  though 
whether  these  were  relatives  of  the  pagan 
Patricius  or  of  his  Christian  wife  cannot  be 
determined.     But  it  is  a  feature  of  moment 


Life  in  Roman  Africa  21 

in  our  psychological  story  that  the  eyes  of 
Augustine's  mind  are  first  opened  amidst 
the  full  and  alluring  charms  of  paganism. 
The  life  about  him  gave  a  reality  to  the 
religious  illusions  of  Virgil  and  Ovid.  Re- 
mote towns  like  Madaura  were  not  affected 
by  the  changes  of  imperial  religious  pro- 
fessions until  well  into  the  fifth  century;  and 
indeed  Valentinian,  who  was  then  on  the 
throne,  interfered  very  little  in  the  rivalry. 
Augustine  recalls  in  later  years,  in  two  un- 
gracious letters  to  cultured  and  broad- 
minded  Madaurian  pagans,  the  great  statue 
of  Mars  that  dominated  the  forum,  the  sight 
of  the  decurions  of  the  town  boisterously 
celebrating  the  orgies  of  Bacchus,  and  other 
experiences  of  his  youth.  The  schools  of 
the  grammarian  and  rhetorician  were  the 
homes  of  the  deposed  Olympians  long  after 
the  temples  had  been  closed  or  destroyed. 
When  the  teaching  imparted  in  them  was 
enforced  by  a  pagan  life  of  unrestrained 
vitality,  the  effect  on  an  impressionable 
youth  must  have  been  profound.  Even 
the  uncultured  Christian  found  himself  in  a 


22  St.  Augustine 

difficult  world  in  the  Afro-Roman  provinces. 
They  used  to  lay  their  doubts  and  tempta- 
tions before  Augustine  in  his  later  years. 
Was  it  lawful  to  make  contracts  with  the 
natives,  which  only  held  when  they  were 
sealed  with  a  score  of  ponderous  oaths? 
Was  it  lawful  to  bathe  with  the  pagans  on 
their  feast-days  ?  What  should  they  drink, 
when  each  well  had  a  tutelary  deity  and  was 
tainted  periodically  with  sacrifices  to  the 
generous  giver  of  water  ?  What  should  they 
eat,  when  every  butcher's  store,  every  vine- 
yard, had  been  blessed  by  sending  a  tithe 
to  the  temples?  For  Augustine  himself  in 
those  early  days  the  influence  must  have 
been  irresistible.  In  some  barnlike  basilica 
he  would  meet  his  fellow-Christians,  and 
listen  to  the  unlettered  discourse,  and  fol- 
low the  unstimulating  service ;  for  the  cate- 
chumen was  excluded  from  taking  part 
in  so  much  of  ritual  as  the  Church  had  al- 
ready adopted.  Then  he  would  go  forth, 
and  pass  the  doors  of  the  temples,  and  drink 
in  the  sweet  odour  of  incense  and  flow- 
ers, and  the  sound  of  music  and  singing, 


Life  in  Roman  Africa  23 

and  mark  the  radiant  faces  and  happy 
freedom  of  the  outpouring  worshippers; 
or  share  the  intoxication  of  the  religious 
processions. 

When  Augustine  was  recalled  to  Thagaste 
in  his  sixteenth  year  we  can  discern  a 
change.  There  is  an  interior  source  of  this, 
which  will  be  examined  presently;  the  long 
and  loud  iteration,  on  every  note  of  the 
captivating  eloquence  of  ritual,  of  the  reality 
and  supremacy  of  love  in  the  life  of  man  had 
awakened  an  echo  in  the  breast  of  the 
ardent  youth.  The  withdrawal  from  Ma- 
daura  might  have  been  of  service  in  meet- 
ing this  new  force.  Unfortunately,  he  was 
withdrawn  only  to  spend  a  year  in  absolute 
idleness.  His  father  was  making  an  effort 
to  procure  funds  for  the  purpose  of  sending 
him  to  Carthage.  In  the  meantime  he  had 
no  tutor  or  judicious  guide.  ' '  The  brambles 
of  lust  grew  about  me,  and  there  was  no 
hand  to  pluck  them  forth."  His  mother? 
Here  it  is  that  one  discerns  a  change,  inde- 
pendently of  the  sexual  development.  His 
father  noticed  his  maturity  in  the  baths, 


24  St.  Augustine 

and  "laughingly"  announced  their  patri- 
archal prospects  to  Monica.  She  at  once, 
and  not  very  tactfully,  approached  Augus- 
tine. He  waved  her  advice  aside  contempt- 
uously as  "womanly  talk." 

I  reserve  for  a  few  pages  such  considera- 
tion of  this  new  birth  as  may  be  necessary. 
In  the  meantime  it  is  well  to  note  that  the 
only  source  of  our  knowledge  of  Augus- 
tine's earlier  life,  with  one  slight  exception, 
is  his  autobiography.  Now,  the  Confessions 
may  be  fine  literature,  but  they  contain  an 
utterly  false  psychology  and  ethics.  About 
the  year  400,  when  they  were  written,  Au- 
gustine had  arrived  at  a  most  lofty  concep- 
tion of  duty  and  life;  he  commits  the  usual 
and  inevitable  fallacy  of  taking  this  later 
standard  back  to  illumine  the  ground  of  his 
early  career.  In  the  glare  of  his  new  ideal, 
actions  which  probably  implied  no  moral  re- 
sistance at  the  time  they  were  performed, 
cast  an  appalling  shadow.  The  astronomer 
has  invented  an  instrument  which  dissipates 
the  excessive  splendour  of  the  sun,  and  per- 
mits him  to  examine  its  disc  in  broad  day- 


Life  in  Roman  Africa  25 

light.  We  must  use  something  like  a  moral 
spectroscope,  a  humane  discretion,  in  ap- 
proaching Augustine's  unregenerate  life  in 
his  Confessions. 


Chapter  II 

The  Third  City  of  the  Empire 

TOURING  the  year  which  followed  his 
*-^  withdrawal  from  Madaura  Augustine 
lost  his  father.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
his  mental  and  moral  development  this  was 
an  event  of  no  great  importance.  The  days 
had  long  since  passed  away  when  the  Ro- 
man father  exercised  a  despotic  authority 
over  his  children,  having  the  power  of  life 
and  death  over  them,  and  the  right  to  sell 
them  into  slavery.  In  the  fourth  century 
the  life  of  the  family  differed  little  from  the 
aspect  it  presents  to-day;  indeed,  we  find 
St.  Jerome,  in  one  of  his  letters,  praising  the 
action  of  a  young  Roman  girl  who  sold  her 
jewelry,  in  a  fit  of  piety,  without  consulting 
her  parents.  Very  frequently  the  relation 
of  father  to  son  was  one  of  strong  personal 
affection  and  constant  assistance ;  as  in  the 

26 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire       27 

case  of  the  senator  Symmachus,  and  of  Au- 
gustine towards  his  own  son.  But  Patricius 
seems  to  have  trusted  largely  in  this  matter 
to  the  general  benevolence  of  the  fates.  He 
was,  however,  exceptionally  eager  for  his 
son's  advancement  in  the  schools,  and  earned 
quite  a  distinction  in  Thagaste  for  his  efforts 
and  sacrifices.  Happily  for  Augustine,  and 
the  Church,  perhaps,  a  second  father,  a 
very  generous  patron,  was  immediately 
found.  This  was  one  of  the  leading  decu- 
rions  of  Thagaste,  a  very  wealthy  man  of 
the  name  of  Romanianus.  He  at  once  be- 
gan his  career  of  generosity  by  finding  the 
money  for  Augustine's  journey  to  Carthage/ 
Roman  Carthage  must  have  fallen  little 
short  of  the  great  city  which  was  ruthlessly 
destroyed  by  Scipio  in  146  B.C.  For  seven- 
teen days  the  Romans  had  gloated  over  the 
flames  that  devoured  the  last  stone  of  their 
historic  rival.  In  122,  and  again  in  29  B.C., 
colonies  were  sent  out  from  Rome  for  the 
purpose  of  rebuilding  the  city.  It  is  now 
generally  agreed  that  the  new  city  was  built 
on  the  bed  of  ashes  that  represented  all  the 


28  St.  Augustine 

glory  of  the  Phoenicians.  The  two  harbours 
were  again  lit  up  with  the  colour  and  echoed 
with  the  life  of  merchant  galleys  and  Roman 
triremes.  The  neighbouring  hill,  the  Byrsa, 
was  crowned  once  more  with  a  great  temple 
of  /Esculapius.  The  forum  rang  again  with 
the  jokes  of  idlers  and  the  swift  rush  of 
chariots;  the  "street  of  bankers  "was  a  sight 
of  the  world  in  its  glory  of  marble  and  gold  ; 
the  "esplanade  "  drew  crowds  of  wondering 
rustics  to  its  famous  mosaics,  representing 
the  giants  and  pygmies,  the  one-eyed,  dog- 
headed,  immense-footed,  and  otherwise  ab- 
normal races  that  lived  beyond  the  hills. 

The  temple  of  Saturn  (formerly  Baal-Ham- 
mon,  or  Moloch)  was  rebuilt;  though  it 
contained  no  longer  the  cruel  image  that 
had  once  received  the  babes  of  the  citizens 
into  its  furnaces.  The  temple  of  Astarte,  or 
Tanit,  was  rebuilt  on  a  magnificent  scale, 
and  was  girt  about  with  a  vast  zone  of  minor 
temples  within  its  two-mile  enclosure.  For 
the  Carthaginians  were  an  intensely  re- 
ligious people.  Their  ardent  and  sensual 
temper  had  found,  or  shaped,  a  religion  in 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire       29 

which  their  strongest  impulses  were  conse- 
crated, and  they  clung  to  its  spectacular 
ceremonies  with  a  not  unnatural  zeal.  It 
has  often  been  pointed  out  how  faithfully 
the  heaven  of  the  uneducated  believer  re- 
flects his  temperament  and  habits;  how  the 
converted  Indian  aspires  to  a  happy  hunting- 
ground,  the  Neapolitan  fisherman  to  a  land 
where  he  may  have  unlimited  absolution 
and  macaroni,  and  the  respectable  Teuton 
to  "a  huge  Gothic  cathedral  in  which  he 
may  praise  the  Lord  for  all  eternity."  That 
feature  is  notoriously  prominent  in  the  in- 
termediate forms  of  religious  development. 
And  Carthage  had  imported  its  gods  and 
goddesses  from  the  hot,  unhealthy  East. 

Probably  one  of  the  first  sights  to  arrest 
the  thoughts  of  the  young  Augustine  in  the 
great  city  was  one  connected  with  religion. 
One  could  not  go  far  in  the  streets  of  Car- 
thage without  meeting  a  number  of  strange 
creatures  — men  who  had  divested  them- 
selves of  the  last  trace  of  manliness.  They 
wore  the  bright,  flowing  tunics  of  women, 
their  yellow  skin  was  elaborately  powdered 


30  St.  Augustine 

and  the  lips  a  brilliant  red,  their  voices  were 
high-pitched  and  squeaky,  their  hair  wet 
with  perfumed  oil,  their  fingers  glittering 
with  diamonds,  and  they  studiously  imitated 
the  gait  and  demeanour  of  women  in  every 
movement.  They  were  the  sexless  priests 
from  the  great  temple  of  Tanit,  parading 
their  repulsive  condition  and  still  more  re- 
pulsive practices  "  in  every  street  and  square 
of  Carthage."  Rome  had  suppressed  the 
earlier  features  of  the  licentious  cult  of  As- 
tarte,  when  each  temple  was  one  vast  sacred 
lupanar;  but  it  did  not  interfere  with  the 
more  pernicious  practices  of  these  eunuch- 
priests  in  the  worship  of  Cybele  (or  "the 
mother  of  the  gods"),  and  Tanit1  (or  "the 

1 1  am  aware  that  Mr.  Davis,  in  his  Carthage,  questions  whether  the 
Carthaginians  ever  admitted  in  their  worship  of  Tanit  the  grosser  feat- 
ures—  of  which  the  curious  reader  will  find  a  description  in  M.  Pierre 
Louys's  Aphrodite — which  were  associated  with  the  cult  of  Astarte 
(the  Syrian  equivalent  of  the  Persian  Tanit,  the  Greek  Aphrodite,  and 
the  Latin  Venus)  in  the  East.  But  his  data  are  very  slender,  and  he 
himself  gives  a  quotation  from  Augustine  which  outweighs  them.  1 
would  also  recommend  the  serious  student  of  ethics  and  sociology  to 
consider  the  very  curious  instance  of  religious  taboo  which  is  probably 
at  the  root  of  this  appalling  development  of  sacred  prostitution,  and 
the  physical  and  physiological  causes  which  were  at  work  in  the  rise 
of  unnatural  vice  in  the  East.  These  are  well  indicated  in  Rosenbaum's 
Geschichte  der  Lustseuche  im  Alterthume. 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire       31 

celestial  virgin  "),  which  had  long  since  so 
deeply  infected  Greece  and  Rome  with  un- 
natural vice.  When  the  city  was  rebuilt 
by  Augustus,  the  temple  of  Tanit  was  re- 
stored in  splendid  proportions.  A  contemp- 
orary writer,  known  as  "Prosper,"  who 
saw  it  first  converted  into  a  Christian  temple, 
and  then  destroyed,  a  few  decades  later, 
describes  it  as  one  of  the  wonders  of  the 
world.  But  the  Romans  knew  not  Tanit, 
and  spoke  confusedly  of  Juno,  Venus,  Diana, 
Minerva,  and  Ceres;  so,  by  a  happy  com- 
promise, it  came  to  be  known  as  the  temple 
of  the  "celestial  virgin,"  or,  briefly,  the 
temple  of  the  ccelestis.  Its  worship,  like 
the  cult  of  Saturn  and  /Esculapius,  was  in 
full  vigour  until  about  391.  The  proconsul 
Tiberius  had  suppressed  the  fiendish  ele- 
ments of  the  cult  of  Saturn  by  hanging  its 
obstinate  priests  on  the  trees  surrounding 
their  temple.  Christianity  found  a  much 
pleasanter  way  of  extinguishing  the  cult  of 
"the  celestial  virgin." 

The  second  great  passion  of  the  Cartha- 
ginians was  for  games  and  spectacles.    In 


32  St.  Augustine 

this  they  were  not  second  to  the  Romans 
themselves.  Salvianus,  indeed,  would  have 
us  believe  that  they  were  not  even  awakened 
to  the  serious  issues  of  life  when  the  Van- 
dals were  thundering  at  their  walls.  "The 
voices  of  the  dying  mingled  with  the  cheers 
of  the  spectators,"  says  that  sombre  rhetor- 
ician ;  "you  could  hardly  distinguish  the 
groans  of  those  who  fell  in  war  from  the  ap- 
plause that  rang  from  the  circus."  For  the 
games  of  the  circus, — chiefly  chariot-races, 
wrestling,  tight-rope  dancing,  etc., — Augus- 
tine seems  to  have  felt  little  attraction.  We 
shall  find  him  bitterly  and  contemptuously 
inveighing  against  them  long  before  his  con- 
version. Nor  does  he  seem  ever  to  have 
looked  with  favour  on  the  bestial  pleasures 
of  the  amphitheatre,  where  the  gladiators 
fought.  Yet  these  contests  had  an  irresist- 
ible fascination  for  the  Carthaginians.  Years 
afterwards,  when  Augustine  came  back  to 
Africa  one  of  the  most  powerful  preachers  in 
the  Western  Church,  Bishop  Aurelius  would 
invite  him  to  come  and  preach  at  Carthage 
on  the  day  of  the  munera,  or  the  gladiatorial 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire       33 

display.  He  sadly  confesses l  that  a  congre- 
gation of  Christians  could  not  be  mustered 
on  such  days. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  was  found  fre- 
quently enough  on  the  benches  of  the  the- 
atre. The  theatre  was  a  peculiarly  mixed 
institution  in  the  Roman  world.  It  was 
there  that  rhetoricians  delivered  their  ornate 
discourses,  and  aspirants  to  the  art  con- 
tended for  the  crown.  Yet  it  seems  clear 
that  Augustine  went  there  for  other  than 
intellectual  feasts.  The  drama  was  greatly 
neglected  in  the  closing  years  of  the  Empire, 
and  the  stage  was  used  for  an  exhibition  of 
coarse  and  stupid  buffoonery.  Conjurers 
and  acrobats  were  provided,  but  the  chief 
attractions  were  the  ribaldry  of  the  mime 
and  the  frequently  obscene  performance  of 
the  pantomime.  In  the  fourth  century  act- 
ors and  actresses  were  treated  as  a  class 
beyond  the  pale  of  moral  feeling,  and  they 
had  their  revenge  on  the  morals  of  their 
superiors.  Christian  bishops,  wiser  in  this 
than  the  men  of  State,  wrung  some  unwill- 

1  See  Sermon  19,  for  instance. 


34  St.  Augustine 

ing  recognition  of  their  human  dignity  from 
the  emperors,  but  it  was  often  recalled. 
Thus,  in  413  we  find  Honorius  directing  the 
"tribune  of  amusements"  at  Carthage  to 
recall  to  the  service  of  the  theatre  the  act- 
resses who  had  been  released  by  "imperial 
kindness  "  (probably  at  the  request  of  the 
African  bishops).  Their  function  was  he- 
reditary ;  conversion  to  Christianity  was  the 
only  channel  of  escape  from  the  degraded 
service  (one  of  the  many  short-sighted  privi- 
leges secured  by  the  bishops  which  accele- 
rated the  growing  corruption  of  the  Church); 
and  a  single  lapse  from  their  converted  con- 
dition bound  them  again  to  the  theatre  for 
life.  In  Procopius's  Secret  Life  there  is  a 
candid  picture  of  their  moral  condition.  In 
the  theatre  they  had  practically  an  unre- 
stricted licence.  The  mimes  exchanged 
ribald  jests  with  each  other  and  the  audi- 
ence, and  freely  caricatured  the  grosser 
features  of  the  State  religion  {e.  g.,  the  cult 
of  Priapus,  which  was  still  maintained),  and 
offered  other  spectacles,  the  worst  of  which 
still  linger  under  the  shadow  of  the  law  in 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire       35 

modern  Paris.  The  pantomimes  had  to 
represent  something  like  our  plays  without 
words.  They— there  were  male  and  female 
characters — had  to  picture  by  gesture  and 
movement  alone  adventures  from  the  poets, 
the  popular  mythology,  etc.,  including,  of 
course,  the  adventures  of  Jupiter. 

I  have  said  enough  for  the  purpose  of 
enabling  the  reader  to  realise  the  moral  at- 
mosphere into  which  Augustine  was  now 
introduced.  It  was  wholly  morbid  and 
vicious.  Salvianus,  the  priest  of  Marseilles, 
who  wrote  with  a  view  to  proving  that  the 
barbarian  invasions  were  a  Providential 
punishment  for  the  vice  of  the  Empire,  de- 
clared that  Carthage  was  "  the  cesspool  of 
Africa,  and  Africa  was  the  cesspool  of  the 
world. "  In  another  place  he  says  that  "  you 
might  as  well  say  an  African  was  not  an 
African  as  say  that  he  was  chaste."  The 
Romans  had  brought  all  their  pleasures  and 
their  vices  with  them  into  the  new  colony; 
no  exiled  Roman  citizen  was  allowed  to 
settle  in  Africa— it  was  too  Roman.  And 
the  East  had  transmitted,  with  its  slaves 


36  St.  Augustine 

and  spices,  some  of  its  most  morbid  prac- 
tices. However,  the  analysis  of  cesspools  is 
not  an  attractive  study,  and  these  general 
indications  suffice  for  our  purpose.  But  it 
is  necessary  to  point  out  that  the  growth  of 
Christianity  in  the  city  of  St.  Cyprian  had 
had  little  influence  on  its  life.  The  vehe- 
mence of  Salvianus — a  Christian  priest — is 
directed  equally  against  the  Christians  and 
the  pagans.  The  acta  of  the  Councils  of 
Carthage  tell  a  sorry  story.  Gibbon  has 
given  some  curious  facts  with  regard  to  the 
morality  of  its  clergy  even  in  the  days  of 
persecution;  and  there  is  many  a  parallel  to 
them  in  the  writings  of  St.  Chrysostom,  St. 
Jerome,  and  St.  Augustine  in  the  fourth 
century.  In  the  sermons  which  Augustine 
preached  at  Carthage  we  have  a  clear  re- 
flection of  the  morals  of  the  Carthaginian 
Christians.  He  is  evidently  addressing  a 
congregation  with  only  the  most  rudiment- 
ary feeling  of  moral  law  on  sexual  matters. 
One  source  of  evil  was  the  vague  belief  that 
sins  committed  before  baptism  had  an  en- 
tirely minor  gravity,  and  the  Church  made 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire       37 

little  effort  to  resist  this  fatal  postponement 
of  baptism.  A  second  difficulty  was  that 
the  Christians  fully  shared  the  typically 
Roman  notion  of  sexual  morality.  Under 
Roman  law  the  criminal  intercourse  of  two 
married  persons  was  punishable  with  death, 
as  was  also  the  violation  of  a  free  woman. 
But  extra-matrimonial  intercourse  was  dis- 
regarded, as  well  as  all  intercourse  with 
slaves.  It  came,  therefore,  to  be  regarded 
as  a  moral  principle— when  that  idea  was 
introduced  to  the  Christian  populace— that 
only  complete  adultery  was  forbidden. 
Augustine  argues  passionately  and  painfully 
with  his  hearers  on  the  point.  But  it  is 
quite  clear  that,  apart  from  the  adultery 
which  was  explicitly  named  in  the  com- 
mandment, his  argument  must  have  been 
entirely  unconvincing  to  such  an  audience. 
Moreover,  Augustine  and  his  fellow-saints 
developed  excessively  ascetic  views  about 
sexual  matters ;  and  the  people,  in  reaction 
on  the  obvious  exaggeration,  would  be  sure 
to  draw  the  line  very  low.  Briefly,  although 
Christianity  had,  with  imperial  assistance, 


38  St.  Augustine 

virtually  conquered  Africa  when  the  Vandals 
arrived  in  429,  it  had  not  conquered,  but 
had  been  conquered  by,  its  vices.  It  was  re- 
served for  the  chaste  Vandals — that  "  army 
of  Puritans,"  as  Mr.  Hodgkin  (following  Sal- 
vianus)  calls  them — to  remedy  in  a  day  the 
corruption  that  Christianity  had  failed  to 
overcome.  Genseric  found  Carthage,  Christ- 
ian and  pagan,  says  Salvianus,  in  a  condition 
of  revolting  public  disorder.  The  Vandal 
chief— let  us  not  use  the  word  " Vandal" 
too  lightly— strode  in,  sword  in  hand,  mar- 
ried or  banished  the  women,  and  purified 
the  long-sullied  streets  of  Carthage.1 

But  we  are  anticipating.  In  370  Carthage 
was  "full  of  people,  and  yet  more  full  of 
infamy."  Augustine  was  not  there  many 
months  before  he  formed  "  a  connection  " — 
to  express  it  in  the  safe  terms  of  an  ecclesi- 
astic, Mr.  Marcus  Dods— "which  was  not 
matrimonial  in  the  strict  sense."  It  may  be 
briefly  noticed  that  biographers  differ  in  their 

1  The  Vandals  were  Christians — Arians  or  Unitarians — recently  con- 
verted. But  no  one  questions  that  the  zeal  for  chastity  with  which 
Salvianus  credits  them  and  the  Goths  was  a  survival  from  their  "  pagan- 
ism."    Carthage  had  been  Christian  for  thirty  years  at  this  time. 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire      39 

appreciation  of  the  steps  by  which  August- 
ine descended  to  this  condition.  As  in  the 
somewhat  analogous  case  of  Pierre  Abelard, 
the  autobiographer  has  used  language  so 
vehement  and  sombre  in  speaking  of  his 
misdeeds,  that  he  is  often  awarded  a  larger 
amount  of  wickedness  than  he  is  probably 
entitled  to.  He  was  in  his  eighteenth  year 
when  he  took  to  himself  a  mistress.  His 
words  seem  to  imply  that  this  was  the  cul- 
mination of  a  couple  of  years  of  corrupt  liv- 
ing. It  is  hardly  worth  while  making  a 
severe  research  into  the  matter,  but  justice 
to  the  young  Augustine  impels  us  to  submit 
one  or  two  considerations.  In  the  first 
place,  Augustine  is  sternly  bent  on  magni- 
fying his  misdeeds  in  his  Confessions.  The 
solemnity  with  which  he  enlarges  on  the 
theft  of  a  few  pears  in  his  sixteenth  year 
should  make  us  accept  his  phrases  with 
some  discretion.  Then  we  have  an  interest- 
ing witness  to  the  light  in  which  he  was 
regarded  by  his  schoolfellows  at  Carthage. 
In  later  years,  Vincentius,  a  Rogatian  (he- 
retical) bishop,  admits,  in  writing  to  him 


40  St.  Augustine 

(Ep.  93),  that  he  was  considered  "a  quiet 
and  respectable  youth. "  Augustine  himself 
says  that  he  refused  to  associate  with  the 
more  disorderly  students.  He  describes  a 
group  of  them,  who  seem  to  correspond 
very  closely  to  the  "Mohawks"  of  older 
London.  They  felt  flattered  by  the  title 
of  the  eversores  (upsetters),  and  endeav- 
oured to  deserve  it  by  the  maltreatment  of 
peaceable  citizens.  A  more  general  defect 
was  the  habit  of  breaking  in  noisily  upon 
the  lectures,  and  creating  disturbances  in  the 
schools.  Augustine  shrank  even  from  this 
lesser  and  more  general  misdemeanour.  In- 
deed, he  writes  that  he  was  driven  to  lying 
for  the  purpose  of  making  himself  the  peer 
of  his  schoolfellows  in  vice.  The  admission 
reveals  a  certain  weakness  of  character,  but 
it  seems  to  point  to  an  exceptional  aversion 
to  vice  in  a  youth  of  his  age  and  circum- 
stances. Finally,  the  fact  that  he  was  faith- 
ful to  his  mistress  for  fourteen  years  implies 
(for  those  days)  a  rare  moderation  of  char- 
acter. Salvianus  would  have  us  believe 
that  such  a  fidelity,  even  amongst  the  mar- 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire      41 

ried  Christians,  was  almost  unknown  in 
Africa;  and  his  statement  finds  grave  con- 
firmation in  Augustine's  own  sermons. 

If,  then,  we  bear  in  mind  that  Augustine 
was  an  Afro-Roman  youth  of  the  fourth 
century,  we  shall  not  find  it  necessary  to 
borrow  the  depressing  phrases  of  the  ordin- 
ary hagiographer.  He  was,  comparatively, 
"  a  quiet  and  respectable  youth."  Hatzfeld 
finds  that  he  was  "troubled  by  the  import- 
unate reproaches  of  his  conscience."  There 
is  no  trace  in  the  Confessions  that  his  con- 
science had  anything  to  say  at  the  time. 
Hatzfeld  commits  the  familiar  anachronism 
of  the  hagiographer.  For  my  part,  I  think 
it  more  profitable  to  study  events  in  the 
century  and  the  environment  in  which  they 
occurred,  and  I  am  forced  to  conclude  that 
Augustine's  conduct  in  his  youth  was  un- 
usually regular.  We  have  an  interesting 
poem  by  Paulinus  of  Pella,  a  grandson  of  the 
poet  Ausonius,  which  affords  a  valuable  in- 
sight into  the  mind  of  even  the  Christian 
community  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries 
on    these    matters.      Paulinus,   a  wealthy 


42  St.  Augustine 

Roman  of  Aquitaine,  had  become  a  notably 
religious  man  after  the  barbarian  invasions; 
and  in  the  retirement  of  his  villa,  in  his 
eighty-third  year  (about  459  B.C.),  had  writ- 
ten a  pious  and  penitent  autobiography, 
with  the  title  of  the  Eucharisticos.  The 
writer  innocently  remarks  that  he  was  careful 
to  guard  "the  treasure  of  chastity  "  (carum 
pudorem)  in  his  later  youth;  which  means, 
he  goes  on  to  explain,  that  he  avoided  rape 
and  adultery,  and  "was  content  with  the 
use  of  the  slaves  of  his  house."  As  M. 
Boissier  says,  the  female  slave  regarded  min- 
istration of  this  kind  as  a  normal  part  of  her 
service.  It  does  not  seem  likely  that  Augus- 
tine's mistress  was  a  slave  ;  though  he  tells 
us  nothing  of  her  beyond  the  facts  of  her 
introduction  to  his  home  and  her  dismissal 
from  it,  after  a  faithful  attachment  of  fourteen 
years,  that  he  might  marry  one  who  seems 
to  have  been  richer.  Finally,  to  put  a  term 
to  this  very  necessary  examination,  it  must 
be  noted  that  Augustine  blames  his  parents 
at  this  period  for  not  marrying  him  (a  matter 
which,  in  ancient  Rome,  concerned  parents 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire      43 

rather  than  the  marriageable  parties)  at 
once,  and  saving  him  from  disorder.  They 
were,  he  complains,  too  eager  for  his  ad- 
vancement in  the  schools.  Probably,  too, 
Monica  found  some  consolation  in  the  cur- 
rent Christian  phrase,  "He  is  not  baptised 
yet." 

In  the  meantime,  Augustine  was  making 
good  progress  in  his  studies.  He  does  not 
hesitate  to  tell  us  that  he  was  distinguished 
for  an  excellent  memory  and  an  unusual 
penetration  for  his  age.  And  as,  with  his 
advance  in  rhetoric,  he  entered  upon  a  more 
systematic  study  of  the  subsidiary  sciences, 
the  field  of  learning  began  to  open  before 
him  with  an  alluring  prospect.  It  was  a 
period  when  the  distinction  of  the  seven 
liberal  arts  was  taking  shape.  Donatus,  the 
great  authority  on  grammar  for  so  many  cent- 
uries, was  even  then  teaching  at  Rome,  num- 
bering amongst  the  youths  who  crowded  his 
benches  an  ardent  young  Dalmatian  of  the 
name  of  Jerome.  Under  his  influence  the 
work  of  the  schools  was  assuming  the  form 
it  was  to  keep  until  well  into  the  Middle 


44  St.  Augustine 

Ages.  Latin  translations  of  Aristotle  formed 
the  basis  of  the  study  of  logic.  Music  was 
studied  with  some  ardour;  evei  Ammianus 
allows  the  fourth  century  a  zeal  for  music. 
Grammar  and  rhetoric  were  the  two  great 
studies,  as  I  said,  overlapping  all  the  rest  at 
that  time.  Arithmetic,  geometry,  and  as- 
tronomy were  also  already  taking  distinct 
form. 

It  was  in  the  pursuit  of  the  last  three  sci- 
ences that  Augustine  was  led  into  his  first 
intellectual  cul-de-sac.  Far  down  into  the 
Middle  Ages  the  study  of  "mathematics" 
was  regarded  alternately  with  suspicion  and 
derision.  Abelard  speaks  of  it  as  "  a  nefarious 
study."  The  casual  reader  of  the  Theodo- 
sian  Code,  that  profoundly  interesting  mirror 
of  the  life  of  falling  Rome,  is  still  further 
perplexed  by  finding  the  sentence  of  death 
—  fiercely  decreed  and  brutally  directed  — 
passed  on  "  mathematicians."  The  modern 
mathematician  being  an  exceptionally  inno- 
cent personage  as  a  rule,  one  wonders  what 
strange  and  misleading  garb  was  worn  by 
his  ancestors.     It  is  even  contended  by  some 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire      45 

recent  German  scholars  that  Hypatia  was  so 
foully  murdered  by  the  people  of  Alexandria 
because  of  her  repute  as  a  mathematician; 
that  is  to  say,— for  no  one  now  questions 
that  the  murder  was  perpetrated  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  Church,  —that  the  features  of 
especial  brutality  which  are  recorded  seem 
to  have  been  inspired  by  the  law  against 
mathematicians. 

The  truth  is  that  mathematics  had  formed 
an  incongruous  and  somewhat  dangerous 
alliance  with  astrology,  divination,  and  for- 
tune-telling. Even  in  the  eyes  of  the  law 
mathematici  are  taken  to  be  the  same  people 
as  the  ubiquitous  astrologers,  or  genethliaci. 
In  his  Doctrina  Christiana,  Augustine  at- 
tacks divination,  which  he  calls  "a  kind  of 
fornication  of  the  soul,"  with  remarkable 
energy,  and  he  renews  the  attack  incessantly 
in  his  sermons  and  writings.  That  is  how 
most  of  us  deal  with  the  errors  which  we 
"  find  out."  Augustine  plunged  deeply  into 
astrology  and  divination  soon  after  his  ar- 
rival at  Carthage,  and  retained  his  belief  in 
it  until  near  the  time  of  his  conversion. 


46  St.  Augustine 

There  were,  indeed,  few  who  escaped  the 
contagion  of  the  popular  belief.  Divination 
was,  of  course,  a  religious  truth  at  that 
time.  Centuries  of  experience  had  not  im- 
paired the  popular  trust  in  the  predictions 
of  oracles,  auspices,  haruspices,  and  the 
whole  army  of  fortune-tellers  connected 
with  the  pagan  religion.  The  Christian  was 
no  less  willing  to  admit  the  faculty  than  the 
pagan  ;  he  had  angels  to  work  his  own 
oracles,  and  devils  for  those  of  the  heathen. 
As  a  result,  the  practice  of  divination  had 
permeated  the  whole  public  and  private  life 
of  the  Empire.  Every  village  had  its  astrolo- 
ger and  sorcerer.  The  stars  were  consulted 
whenever  a  tree  was  planted  or  a  cow  was 
to  be  mated.  The  astrologer  had  to  say 
whether  the  newcomer  would  be  good  for 
milk,  or  draught,  and  so  forth.  Many  even 
had  the  course  of  the  planets  carefully  con- 
sidered in  the  matter  of  their  own  offspring, 
choosing  moments  of  "a  favourable  con- 
junction."1   Whenever  anything  was  lost, 

1  As  Augustine  afterwards  said,  in  the  City  of  God,  the  advent  of 
twins,  with  different  temperament  and  fortunes,  was  the  great  crux 
of  the  genethliacus. 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire      47 

the  diviner  was  consulted.  In  his  work, 
Contra  Academicos,  Augustine  tells  how  he 
and  some  of  his  pupils  went  to  consult  a 
diviner  of  the  name  of  Albicerius  about  a 
spoon  they  had  lost.  Albicerius  found  the 
spoon  for  them, — so  says  Augustine,  who 
remains  a  model  of  trustfulness  throughout 
life,  — and  added  many  other  marvels.  He 
disclosed  to  them  that  the  slave  who  carried 
the  purse  had  helped  himself  from  it  on  the 
journey;  and  he  told  them  any  passage  of 
Virgil  they  cared  to  think  about.1  On  an- 
other occasion  Augustine  was  going  to  com- 
pete for  a  prize  in  the  theatre  by  the  delivery 
of  a  rhetorical  discourse,  and  he  was  ap- 
proached by  a  kind  of  private  haruspex,  who 
promised,  for  a  consideration,  to  discover 
his  chances.  It  says  much  for  Augustine's 
character  that  he  repulsed  the  man  vigor- 
ously, in  spite  of  his  superstition:  ''Though 

1  Augustine  afterwards  attributes  the  man's  skill  to  the  devil's  assist- 
ance. Cardinal  Rauscher,  the  chief  biographer  of  St.  Augustine,  adds 
a  number  of  similar  marvels  that  were  performed  under  his  own  eyes 
in  modern  Germany;  in  the  meantime  the  devil  has  retired,  and  the 
events  are  explained  scientifically.  But  I  must  warn  admirers  of  Lyt- 
ton's  views  on  such  matters  that  Albicerius  is  described  as  a  man  of 
notoriously  vicious  life. 


48  St.  Augustine 

the  crown  were  of  imperishable  gold,  I  would 
not  suffer  a  fly  to  be  killed  to  gain  it  for  me. " 
It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Rome  was 
actuated  in  its  repeated  fulminations  against 
divination  by  the  paternal  feeling  for  the 
credulous  which  inspires  our  modern  laws 
against  palmistry.  The  emperors  had  dis- 
covered that,  in  that  age  of  short  leases  of 
imperatorial  power,  ambitious  officers  were 
tempted  to  consult  diviners  as  to  the  next 
successor  to  the  purple;  and  it  was  not  un- 
justly suspected  that  the  honour  of  the 
diviner's  profession  might  be  unduly  pre- 
served, when  a  prediction  had  been  given 
and  paid  for,  by  a  little  artificial  assistance 
judiciously  applied  to  the  natural  course  of 
events.  Constans  and  Constantius,  Valens 
and  Valentinian,  passed  drastic  laws  for  the 
extinction  of  secret  divination.  A  few  years 
before  Augustine  came  to  Carthage  there 
had  been  a  fierce  persecution  of  diviners 
throughout  the  Empire  on  account  of  a  con- 
sultation as  to  the  imperial  succession.  The 
manner  of  going  to  work  is  curiously  de- 
scribed by  Ammianus  Marcellinus.    A  tripod 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire      49 

table,  made  with  branches  of  laurel,  was  set 
up  in  a  strongly  perfumed  chamber.  On  the 
table  was  a  basin  of  various  metals,  having 
the  letters  of  the  alphabet  engraved  round 
the  rim.  Over  this  a  ring  was  suspended, 
and  was  set  in  motion  by  a  man  who  stood 
beside  it,  clothed  in  white  linen,  and  with 
vervain  in  his  hand.  The  ring  then  spelt  a 
message  in  much  the  same  fashion  as  is  done 
on  the  modern  "ouijah  "  board. 

All  the  Christian  orators  of  the  time  de- 
nounce the  popular  recourse  to  divination 
unceasingly.  They  plainly  intimate  that  the 
Christians  are  as  bad  as  the  pagans.  Indeed, 
it  was  only  the  more  stern  priests  of  the 
Church  who  offered  a  consistent  opposition 
to  it.  St.  Jerome  tells  a  story  which  doubt- 
less illustrates  a  good  deal  of  Christian  as 
well  as  pagan  life.  St.  Hilarion,  he  says, 
was  approached  by  a  wealthy  Christian  who 
was  about  to  compete  in  an  important  char- 
iot-race, but  whose  horses  had  been  para- 
lysed by  the  magical  rites  of  his  adversary. 
Hilarion  resisted  the  man  for  some  time,  but 
at  length  gave  him  his  drinking-cup  full  of 


50  St.  Augustine 

water  to  sprinkle  about  the  stable.  The 
charm  was  broken,  the  race  won,  and  the 
Church  gained  a  large  number  of  "con- 
verts." Again,  when  Rome  was  threatened 
by  the  Goths  in  408,  a  body  of  Tuscan  di- 
viners presented  themselves  to  the  prefect, 
and  offered  to  call  down  lightning  on  the 
barbarians,  as  they  had  done  before.  The 
prefect  consulted  Pope  Innocent,  who  was 
willing  that  the  Tuscan  priests  should  have 
a  trial,  but  not  in  public.  The  Tuscans,  of 
course,  declared  that  their  sacrifices  would 
be  unavailing  if  not  performed  with  becom- 
ing solemnity,  and  Rome  fell.  But  in  the 
meantime  Pope  Innocent  secured  another  se- 
vere law  against  the  mathematicians.  His 
situation  had  hardly  been  one  of  dignity  or 
comfort. 

Augustine  retained  his  belief  in  the  powers 
of  the  astrologer  for  a  number  of  years.  He 
was  severely  taken  to  task  for  it  by  the  pro- 
consul, Vindicianus,  who  crowned  him  after 
a  prize  oration  in  the  theatre,  and  who  seems 
to  have  taken  a  warm  interest  in  his  pro- 
gress.    A  favourite  pupil  of  his,  Nebridius, 


The  Third  City  of  the  Empire      51 

also  continually  ridiculed  his  belief.  But  it 
was  not  until  he  had  made  considerable 
progress  in  astronomy,  and  was  faced  with 
a  large  number  of  failures  to  predict,  that  he 
parted  with  a  belief  which  had  afforded  him 
amusement,  if  not  enthusiasm,  for  so  many 
years.  He  then,  as  is  the  wont  of  such 
characters  as  his,  takes  a  most  sombre  view 
of  his  old  opinion,  and  denounces  it  and  its 
supporters  in  embittered  terms. 


Chapter  III 

Mental   Growth 

IN  this  whirlpool  of  life  at  Carthage  in  the 
'  fourth  century  Augustine  spent  his  eight- 
eenth and  nineteenth  years.  It  is  true  that 
he  was  already  lifted  above  mediocrity,  not 
only  by  an  exceptional  ability  and  some  re- 
finement of  character,  but  also  by  an  aspira- 
tion. He  had  ambition  and  an  ideal.  He 
was  already  conscious  of  a  spark  of  the 
ethereal  fire  that  burns  in  the  soul  of  the 
elect,  and  was  resolved  to  plough  his  way 
across  the  common  furrows  of  life.  But  his 
ambition  was  purely  selfish  and  his  ideal 
earthly.  Advancement  in  the  schools,  dis- 
tinction at  the  bar,  wealth,  the  repute  of 
eloquence,  and  possibly,  in  the  end,  sen- 
atorial dignity.  Perhaps  it  was,  after  all,  a 
commonplace  ideal  for  a  Roman  youth.     At 

all  events,  his  vision  was  bounded  by  the 

52 


Mental  Growth  53 

farthest  horizon  of  the  life  that  surrounded 
him.  But  one  day,  in  his  nineteenth  year, 
a  strange  light  fell  on  his  mind,  and  grad- 
ually there  came  into  his  vision  the  lines  and 
peaks  of  the  eternal  hills  beyond,  the  irresist- 
ible splendour  of  the  intellectual  ideal,  far 
outshining  the  glitter  of  his  ambition.  And 
the  poor  pilgrim  of  truth  set  out  on  the 
eternal  quest. 

The  accident  that  thus  kindled  into  full 
flame  the  idealist  force  in  Augustine  was  the 
reading  of  a  work  (now  lost)  of  Cicero.  In 
the  ordinary  course  of  his  studies  —  though 
Augustine's  could  hardly  be  called  an  or- 
dinary course:  he  mastered  the  Categories  of 
Aristotle  without  assistance  in  his  twentieth 
year  —  he  came  to  take  up  Cicero's  Horten- 
sius.  It  changed  at  once  the  whole  colour 
of  his  thoughts  and  aspirations.  "  Forth- 
with all  vain  ambition  fell  from  me,  and  I 
longed,  with  an  incredible  ardour  of  soul, 
for  the  immortal  treasures  of  wisdom;  I  had 
begun  to  arise,  that  I  might  return  to  Thee." 
In  his  later  piety  Augustine  probably  as- 
signed too  definitely  religious  an  impulse  to 


54  St.  Augustine 

the  reading  of  the  Hortensius.  When  he 
says  that  "the  only  thing  that  troubled  me 
in  my  new-born  ardour  was  the  absence  of 
Thy  name  from  the  book,"  we  may  respect- 
fully decline  to  follow  him ;  it  is  by  no  means 
the  only  instance  in  the  Confessions  of  a 
foreshortening  of  his  psychic  perspective. 
Yet  it  is  clear  that  the  work  at  once  gave  a 
new  direction  to  Augustine's  thoughts  and 
purified  his  ambition.  "At  that  time  my 
sole  delight  in  that  exhortation  was  that  it 
spurred  me  on  to  love  and  seek  and  attain 
and  embrace,  not  this  or  that  sect,  but  wis- 
dom itself,  wherever  it  might  lie  ";  and  he 
adds  in  the  Soliloquies  that  it  cured  him  of 
the  thirst  for  wealth.  The  Hortensius  was 
written  by  Cicero  as  an  exhortation  to  the 
study  of  philosophy.  It  is  a  pity  a  work  of 
such  force  has  perished;  but  it  must  be 
pointed  out  once  more  that  the  moral  of  the 
Hortensius  could  not  have  lighted  this  flame 
in  the  mind  of  the  youth  if  he  had  been  as 
corrupt  in  those  unregenerate  days  as  he 
himself  and  most  of  his  ecclesiastical  bio- 
graphers pretend.     The   humanism  of  the 


Mental  Growth  55 

twentieth  century  will  surely  refuse  to  allow 
any  longer  this  distortion  of  an  orderly 
psychic  growth  in  the  interest  of  a  dogma. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  that  the  study 
of  philosophy  was  all  but  dead  in  the  West- 
ern Empire  in  the  fourth  century.  The 
schools  of  Alexandria  cultivated  the  study 
until  much  later  (Mr.  Kingsley's  novel  de- 
parting very  widely  from  historical  truth  in 
this  and  other  important  respects),  and  Au- 
gustine's correspondence  will  introduce  us 
to  a  number  of  isolated  students  and  follow- 
ers of  the  thoughts  of  Plato;  but  philosophy 
had  few  votaries  and  fewer  shrines.  The 
grammarian  and  the  rhetorician  only  im- 
parted such  fragments  of  it  as  they  found 
convenient.  Hence  Augustine  obtained  little 
more  assistance  from  them  than  an  indica- 
tion of  the  few  works  available  in  Carthage. 
There  were  large  towns  in  Africa  (such  as 
Hippo)  that  had  not  even  a  copy  of  Cicero. 
The  young  "  seeker  of  wisdom  "  had  to  push 
his  Sisyphean  stone  alone. 

In  this  absence  of  an  orderly  philosophical 
training  or  a  large  philosophical  literature, 


56  St.  Augustine 

and  seeing  that  he  still  attended  church 
sometimes  (Conf.,  iii.,  3),  it  is  natural  to  find 
him  turning  first  to  Scripture  for  enlighten- 
ment. "But  it  seemed  to  me,"  he  says, 
"  unworthy  to  be  compared  with  the  ma- 
jesty of  Cicero."  There  came  a  day  when 
Augustine  found  deep  and  accurate  science 
in  Genesis,  a  "  mystic"  beauty  in  the  lives  of 
the  patriarchs,  a  surpassing  eloquence  in  the 
Gospels,  and  a  supreme  reasonableness  in 
Paul's  demand  that  we  shall  close  our  eyes 
and  obey  him.  In  his  twentieth  year  it  im- 
pressed him  as  it  impresses  most  of  us  in 
our  twenties  —  if  we  chance  to  read  it  — 
and  some  of  us  throughout  life.  The  stern 
voice  of  Paul  of  Tarsus,  denouncing  philo- 
sophy as  folly  and  the  simple  demand  for 
evidence  in  a  world  of  lies  as  arrogance,  re- 
pelled him.  The  strange  story  that  ran  so 
unevenly  through  the  unlettered  Gospels  re- 
quired some  proof;  and  Paul  merely  flung 
back  his  questions  with  disdain.  Was  he 
to  submit  implicitly  to  these  apparently  ig- 
norant men?  It  was  Cicero  who  had  lit  up 
for  him  the  vision  of  the  far-off  hills  where 


Mental  Growth  57 

truth  dwelt;  he  expected  to  feel  the  solid 
ground  beneath  him,  and  seethe  path  ahead 
at  every  step.  Moreover,  truth  was  to  bring 
harmony  into  his  thoughts;  this  story  of 
Christ  only  widened  the  gulf  between  his 
idea  of  God  and  his  experience  of  life.  He 
closed  the  Scripture,  not  in  pride,  but  in 
perplexity  and  sorrow,  and  looked  out  on 
the  ways  of  life. 

Harnack  has  said  that  the  three  religions 
which  disputed  the  soul  of  humanity  in  this 
fateful  fourth  century  were  Christianity, 
Neo-Platonism,  and  Manicheism.  Others 
regard  Mithraism  as  the  serious  rival  of 
Christianity;  the  popular  impression  would 
have  it  to  be  the  ancient  Roman  religion. 
Certainly,  what  was  already  being  called 
"  Paganism  "  was  dying.  For  many  cent- 
uries it  had  sheltered  Rome,  but  corruption 
was  eating  into  its  heart,  and  the  yellow 
leaves  were  falling  on  every  side.  Either 
Platonism  or  Mithraism  formed  the  core  of 
whatever  religion  the  cultured  pagan  still 
retained,  as  will  be  seen  presently.  In 
Western  Africa  these  two  religions  were 


58  St.  Augustine 

inconspicuous;  its  bald  polytheism,  unideal- 
ised  by  Neo-Platonic  symbolism  and  unan- 
imated  by  Mithraic  emotion  and  ethics,  never 
appealed  to  Augustine.  He  takes  credit  to 
himself  that  he  never,  at  any  moment  of  his 
life,  questioned  the  existence  of  God.  His 
idea  of  a  philosophy  or  of  truth  was  of  some- 
thing that  would  illumine  the  seeming  chaos 
of  life  with  this  thought.  Paganism  was  to 
him,  in  his  rationalist  mood,  merely  an  out- 
worn, tinselled  garment,  clothing  a  dead 
idol.  He  turned  perforce  from  Christianity 
to  Manicheism,  a  religion  which  had  a 
considerable  and  a  cultured  following  in 
Africa. 

Manicheism  has  been  persistently  misre- 
presented by  Augustine's  biographers;  even 
M.  Poujoulat  gives  a  fantastic  version  of  its 
origin  and  an  ungenerous  exposition  of  its 
doctrines.  M.  Beausobre,  its  classic  expon- 
ent, contends  that  Augustine  himself  mis- 
represents it.  Assuredly  Augustine  has  not 
the  habit  of  presenting  the  errors  he  once 
held  in  the  light  in  which  they  must  first 
have  appealed  to  him,  but  it  is  likely  that  he 


Mental  Growth  59 

correctly  describes,  on  the  whole,  the  Mani- 
cheism  he  embraced  in  the  fourth  century; 
this  may  have  differed  as  much  from  the 
teaching  of  Mani  as  fourth-century  Christi- 
anity departed  from  the  teaching  of  Christ. 
Indeed,  there  is  much  obscurity  about  the 
origin  of  the  religion.  It  is  now  generally 
agreed1  that  the  Christian  tradition  on  the 
subject  is  unworthy  of  credence,  and  the 
Mohammedan  alone  reliable.  According  to 
this,  Mani,  the  founder,  was  a  Persian  noble 
of  some  culture,  born  at  Ecbatana,  probably 
about  215  a.d.  Starting  from  the  ground- 
work of  an  ancient  Babylonian  nature- 
religion,  and  adding,  as  he  proceeded,  ele- 
ments from  Parseeism,  Christianity  (probably 
through  the  Gnostics),  and  possibly  Buddh- 
ism, he  finally  presented  to  the  world  what 
purported  to  be  a  complete  philosophy  of  life. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  sources  of 
the  Manichean  doctrine,  Augustine  was  in- 
itiated to  a  plausible  and  impressive  system 
when  he  sought  instruction.    To  one  who, 

1  See  "  Manicheism"  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  a  most  in- 
structive essay  by  Professor  Harnack. 


60  St.  Augustine 

like  Augustine,  held  the  being  of  God  as  a 
first  principle  with  which  the  world  must  be 
forced  into  some  kind  of  harmony,  the  power 
of  evil  would  be  the  most  arresting  aspect 
of  life.  The  Manicheans  had  a  ready  an- 
swer. The  human  heart  was  right,  they 
said:  evil  did  not  come  from  God.  There 
were  two  eternal  principles  —  the  good  and 
the  evil,  light  and  darkness.  This  checkered 
world,  with  its  alternate  triumph  of  light 
and  shade,  its  ever-changing  song  and  dirge, 
was  the  battle-ground  of  their  conflict,  the 
outcome  of  a  confusion  of  their  kingdoms. 
So  much  the  very  face  of  the  world  pro- 
claimed. And  imagination  soared  back 
down  the  ages  to  a  time  when  the  two 
kingdoms  —  of  light  and  of  darkness — were 
separated.  Imagine  a  conflict  of  the  good 
and  the  evil  powers;  a  partial  victory  of  Satan 
and  invasion  of  the  kingdom  of  light;  the 
birth  of  a  world  of  these  commingled  ele- 
ments; the  creation  of  man  a  creature  of 
light,  and  his  defeat  and  corruption  by  the 
demons.  Imagination  has  constructed  the 
very  world  that  lies  about  us,  the  very  nature 


Mental  Growth  61 

that  is  in  us;  to  them  it  appeals  for  proof  of 
the  "revelation."  Henceforward  life  is  a 
stern  process  of  redemption,  an  eternal  strug- 
gle of  the  elements  of  light  to  break  free 
from  the  kingdom  of  darkness,  and  return 
to  their  source.  There  have  been  poorer 
theories  framed  in  Germany  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  theories  that  have  less  echo  in 
man's  consciousness  and  less  guarantee  in 
the  broad  features  of  the  world,  f ' 

The  moral  system  which  was  founded  on 
these  speculations  will  be  readily  conceived. 
It  embodied  the  superficial  lesson  which 
nearly  all  great  religions  thought  they  gath- 
ered from  the  very  heart  of  life  —  asceticism. 
From  all  their  different  starting-points,  with 
all  their  varied  notions  of  Deity,  the  great  re- 
ligions have,  nevertheless,  singularly  agreed 
in  exaggerating  the  lesson  of  moral  equi- 
librium which  nature  urged.  Manicheism 
was  peculiarly  disposed  to  emphasise  this. 
Its  morality  was  identical  with  its  physics. 
Physical  light  was  moral  good,  and  physical 
darkness  evil ;  and  the  process  of  severance 
was  at  once  physical  and  moral.     Hence  the 


62  St.  Augustine 

reaction,  the  inevitable  revolt  of  nature,  was 
swift  and  sad.  Manicheism  drew  a  dis- 
tinction like  that  of  the  Church  between  its 
elect  and  its  catechumens,  or  auditors ;  and 
the  latter,  like  the  unbaptised  Christians, 
lived  very  much  as  they  liked.  Augustine, 
at  a  later  date,  makes  great  effort  to  asperse 
the  character  of  the  elect,  of  whom  he 
retails  many  hearsay  scandals.  It  would  be 
a  moral  miracle  if  there  were  not  hypocrites 
amongst  them,  but  Augustine's  tirades  have 
something  of  the  tone  of  "the  escaped 
monk."  Yet  an  impartial  study  of  all  that 
we  know  of  Manicheism  at  the  time  — 
though  we  know  it  only  from  its  enemies 
—  seems  to  discover  it  to  be  rather  an  intel- 
lectual clique  with  little  moral  earnestness. 
It  survived  until  late  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
yet  one  finds  it  hard  to  conceive  it  as  a 
serious  rival  of  Christianity.  Its  "  reformed  " 
section,  its  Puritans,  were  gathered  into  a 
sect  called  the  MaUarii  in  Augustine's  day. 
One  of  those  wealthy  zealots  who  are  at 
once  the  treasure  and  the  terror  of  all  sects, 
tried  to  initiate  a  higher  life  at  Rome.     He 


Mental  Growth  63 

attracted  a  large  number  of  the  elect  to  his 
house,  and  they  drew  up  an  ascetic  scheme 
of  life.  Augustine  is  never  tired,  in  his  later 
years,  of  describing  the  result.  One  by  one 
the  elect  retired  to  their  comfortable  homes, 
and  a  sect  of  "sleepers  on  mats,"  that 
finally  clung  to  Constantius  until  his  seces- 
sion to  Christianity,  was  very  slender. 

It  must,  however,  be  pointed  out  that 
this  simple  basis  of  theory  and  ethics  was 
overlaid  with  a  towering  structure  of  dogma, 
ritual,  and  organisation.  The  Oriental  im- 
agination filled  in  the  details  of  the  primitive 
fable;  the  growing  hierarchy,  as  is  usual, 
" discovered"  fresh  Scriptures.  Thus  was 
gradually  built  up  the  singular  structure 
which  thrusts  its  bizarre  features  upon  us 
from  every  page  of  Augustine's  writings. 
In  streaming  upwards  from  the  earth  to  its 
natural  reservoirs,  the  sun  and  moon,  the 
light  was  intercepted  by  the  roots  of  plants 
and  trees  ;  it  was  absorbed  into  their  struc- 
ture, and  revealed  its  divine  presence  in 
the  glory  of  flower  and  perfume.  Hence 
the  Manichean  horror  of  plucking  flowers, 


64  St.  Augustine 

vegetables,  or  fruit.  This  was  met,  however, 
by  a  belief — a  belief  which  chanced  to  be, 
as  sometimes  happens,  extremely  advant- 
ageous to  the  clergy — that  when  the  elect 
eat  these  fruits  or  vegetables,  they  set  free 
the  divine  light  to  continue  its  upward  jour- 
ney. Hence,  although  they  were  vegetari- 
ans and  celibates  —  there  being  no  light  to 
deliver  in  dead  flesh,  and  procreation  being 
a  multiplication  of  evil  —  the  elect  had  a 
not  unpleasant  existence.  Augustine  would 
have  it  that  their  life  was  a  continuous  ban- 
quet of  the  choicest  fruits,  cakes,  truffles, 
artichokes,  and  sweet  wines,  contributed  in 
vast  quantities  by  the  auditors  (uninitiate). 
Such  a  system  would  inevitably  lead  to 
grave  abuses.  Moreover,  as  the  conduct  of 
the  auditors  was  little  controlled,  and  the 
peculiar  tenets  of  the  elect  as  to  sexual 
matters  seem  to  point  to  grave  disorders,  it 
is  probable  that  Manicheism  did  no  more 
than  Christianity  towards  the  purification  of 
the  Empire. 

Augustine  seems  to  have  felt  some  en- 
thusiasm  for  his  new  religion,  or  rather 


Mental  Growth  65 

philosophy,  during  the  next  few  years.  We 
may  generously  decline  to  take  quite  liter- 
ally his  later  lament  in  the  De  Dono  Per- 
severantice,  that  he  "had  devastated  the 
Catholic  faith,"  but  he  won  over  a  number 
of  his  friends  to  Manicheism ;  whatever 
evil  he  achieved  in  that  way  was  fully 
atoned  by  his  later  treatment  of  his  old 
religion.  For  a  few  years  he  was  genuinely 
captivated  by  the  fine  simplicity  and  plausi- 
bility of  its  main  gospel.  The  Manichees 
rejected  the  Old  Testament,  and  they  en- 
couraged youths  like  Augustine  to  make 
merry  over  the  lives  of  the  patriarchs;  this 
also  he  atoned  for  later  on  by  his  "  mystic  " 
treatment  of  their  Oriental  ways,  though 
they  long  eluded  even  his  respectful  efforts 
to  explain.  Presently  we  shall  find  him 
looking  more  critically  into  the  system. 
For  the  moment  it  succeeded  where  Christ- 
ianity had  failed.  He  wanted  a  religion 
which  should  explain  the  world  to  him,  and 
the  Manicheans  gave,  on  the  whole,  a  plausi- 
ble interpretation  of  it,  as  it  appeared  to  him. 
He  was  in  his  twentieth  year  when  he 


66  St.  Augustine 

embraced  the  religion  of  Mani,  and  it  seems 
to  have  been  shortly  after  this  that  he  fin- 
ished his  studies  at  Carthage  and  returned  to 
Thagaste.  Monica  was  profoundly  troubled 
about  his  lapse.  She  seems  to  have  ac- 
cepted his  companion  without  a  murmur, 
but  the  descent  into  heresy  was  an  unpar- 
donable depth.  She  refused  to  sit  at  the 
same  table  with  him,  and  it  seems  likely  (Con- 
tra Academicos,  ii.,  3)  that  he  lived  with  his 
patron,  Romanianus.  But  Monica  was  soon 
happily  released  from  the  painful  duty  her 
conscience  had  imposed.  She  was  assured 
in  a  dream,  that  happy  and  familiar  medium 
of  celestial  communications,  that  Augustine 
would  one  day  return  to  Christianity.  That 
seems  to  have  quite  removed  the  sting  of 
the  actual  sin.  She  found  further  consola- 
tion in  the  well-known  assurance  of  a 
bishop,  whom  she  vainly  begged  to  argue 
with  her  son  ("he  said  I  had  already  given 
much  trouble  to  the  unlearned  by  my  quest- 
ions," says  Augustine),  that  "the  child  of 
those  tears  could  not  perish."  From  that 
date   Monica  entered   upon  the  long  and 


Mental  Growth  67 

passionate  devotion  to  her  son's  conversion 
which  has  earned  for  the  simple,  ignorant 
woman  an  immortal  place  amongst  the 
mothers  of  men. 

For  some  reason  which  Augustine  does 
not  mention,  probably  for  want  of  funds,  he 
ceased  to  look  to  the  legal  profession,  and 
opened  a  school  at  Thagaste.  In  the  Con- 
fessions he  says  that  he  taught  rhetoric 
there,  but  his  disciple  and  biographer,  Pos- 
sidius,  says  he  taught  grammar  at  Thagaste 
and  rhetoric  at  Carthage.  This  is  much  the 
more  probable;  Augustine's  chronology  is  a 
little  confused  in  the  Confessions.  Here  he 
gathered  about  him  a  number  of  admiring 
pupils,  some  of  whom  clung  to  him  through- 
out life.  "I  preferred  good  students,"  he 
says.  The  Hortensius  had  moderated  his 
desire  for  wealth,  and  he  would  find  it  pos- 
sible to  combine  his  philosophic  studies 
with  the  instruction  of  a  few  quiet  youths. 
It  was  about  the  time  when  (in  376)  Gratian 
ordered  the  municipal  councils  to  pay  a 
regular  fee  to  their  teachers;  and  with  this, 
the  usual  gifts  from  pupils,  the  patronage  of 


68  St.  Augustine 

Romanianus,  and  a  moderate  private  in- 
come, Augustine  would  be  in  a  comfortable 
position.  His  lifelong  friend  and  "  little 
slave"  Alypius,  son  of  one  of  the  leading 
decurions  of  Thagaste,  and  two  sons  of  the 
wealthy  Romanianus,  were  amongst  his 
pupils,  and  it  was  not  long  before  most  of 
his  friends  were  Manicheans. 

In  the  course  of  a  year  or  two  we  find  him 
returning  to  Carthage,  and  opening  a  school 
of  rhetoric  there.  In  his  Contra  Academicos 
(ii.,  3)  he  admits  that  ambition  had  some 
share  in  the  change,  but  in  the  Confessions 
he  assigns  a  cause  which  leads  him  to  write 
some  fine  passages.  About  a  year  after  his 
return  to  Thagaste  he  lost  his  most  intimate 
friend.  The  youth  had  studied  with  him, 
and  had  been  converted  by  him  to  Mani- 
cheism.  He  contracted  a  dangerous  fever, 
and  died  in  Augustine's  absence.  The  beau- 
tiful passage  in  which  Augustine  expresses 
his  grief  thirty  years  afterwards  reveals  a 
singularly  deep  affection. 

My  heart  was  darkened  with  sorrow;  whatever  I 
looked  upon  was  death.     My  country  was  a  torment 


Mental  Growth  69 

to  me,  my  father's  house  a  strange  affliction;  what- 
ever I  had  shared  with  him  seemed  to  become,  without 
him,  an  unendurable  torture.  My  eyes  sought  him  on 
every  side,  and  he  came  not.  I  hated  all  things,  be- 
cause they  held  him  not;  nor  could  they  say  to  me, 
as  they  were  wont  to  do  during  his  absence,  while 
he  yet  lived,  "  Behold,  he  comes."  I  found  myself  one 
ceaseless  question,  ever  asking  my  soul  why  it  was 
sad,  and  why  it  afflicted  me;  and  it  knew  not  what  to 
answer  me.  .  .  .  Weeping  alone  brought  me 
some  sweetness,  and  took  the  place  of  my  friend  in 
my  heart.  ...  I  bore  about  a  soul  that  was  rent 
and  bleeding,  impatient  of  my  bearing  it  longer,  yet  I 
found  not  where  I  might  lay  it  down.  Not  in  pleas- 
ant groves,  nor  in  game  and  song,  nor  in  perfumed 
chambers,  nor  in  rich  banquets,  nor  in  the  pleasure  of 
the  bed,  nor  in  books  or  poetry,  could  it  find  rest. 
The  very' light  of  day  was  odious  to  me;  and  all  that 
was  not  like  him,  except  groans  and  tears,  was  a  thing 
of  hate  and  affliction.  In  tears  alone  did  I  find  some 
rest. 

The  love  that  speaks  thus  after  a  silence  of 
thirty  years  —  and  such  years  as  Augustine 
had  seen  — was  assuredly  "stronger  than 
death."  Unhappily,  these  beautiful  pages 
of  the  Confessions  are  marred  by  the  painful 
exaggeration  of  Augustine's  later  attitude. 
No  one  can  read  without  deep  respect  and 
sympathy  Augustine's  eloquent  claim  that 
even  this  human  love  must  be  sanctified  in 


70  St.  Augustine 

God  and  supported  by  the  clear  vision  of  im- 
mortal life.  But  it  is  another  matter  when 
he  goes  on  to  denounce  "the  impurity  of 
such  affections,"  because  they  remain  on  the 
level  of  humanity.  There  are  some  who 
think  the  violent  phrase  implies  that  this 
friendship  was  not  even  humanly  holy.  I 
am  confident  Augustine  never  meant  that. 
It  is  only  a  part  of  the  contempt  which  he 
pours  on  all  things  human — love,  joy,  pleas- 
ure, science,  art  —  from  the  altitude  of  his 
new  position. 

One  interesting  result  of  this  loss  of  his 
friend  was  that  it  led  to  Augustine's  first 
literary  experiment.  The  intensity  of  his 
affection,  so  cruelly  revealed,  led  him  to 
speculate  on  the  nature  of  the  beautiful. 
"What  is  it,"  he  kept  asking  his  friends, 
"that  draws  us  and  binds  us  to  the  things 
we  love  ?  "  After  a  time  he  embodied  his 
reflections  in  a  treatise  of  two  or  three 
("  Thou  knowest,  my  God,  I  forget, "  he  says, 
in  his  familiar  way)  books  On  the  Fit  and  the 
Beautiful.  They  were  dedicated  to  Hierius, 
a  Syrian  rhetorician,  who  was  being  much 


Mental  Growth  71 

talked  of  at  the  time;  Augustine  has  after- 
wards to  devote  many  pages  to  the  folly 
of  this  dedication.  It  would  be  interesting 
to  read  what  he  had  to  say  about  beauty  in 
his  pre-Platonic  days,  but  the  books  had 
already  disappeared  at  the  time  he  wrote 
his  Confessions.  The  earliest  genuine  works 
of  his  which  we  have  were  written  after  his 
conversion;  though  an  immense  number  of 
supposititious  works  were  ascribed  to  him 
until  modern  times. 

It  seems  to  have  been  about  379  or  380 
that  he  returned  to  Carthage,  and  opened 
a  school  of  rhetoric.  With  all  its  gaiety, 
Carthage  was  a  busy  centre  of  education, 
and  had  a  feeling  for  rhetorical  display. 
Augustine  would  not  lack  pupils;  and,  as  I 
have  already  mentioned,  he  once  gained  the 
crown  in  the  theatre  for  a  prize  oration,  and 
won  the  affection  and  patronage  of  the  pro- 
consul Vindicianus.  Some  of  his  pupils  fol- 
lowed him  from  Thagaste,  and  they  were 
joined  by  a  clever  youth,  from  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Carthage,  of  the  name  of 
Nebridius,    and    a    certain    Eulogius,   who 


72  St.  Augustine 

afterwards  became  himself  a  rhetorician  of 
some  merit.  His  friend  Alypius,  who  was 
training  for  the  law  (though  he  eventually 
found  a  place  with  Augustine  in  the  ranks  of 
the  episcopate),  did  not  attend  his  lectures 
regularly,  his  father  having  quarrelled  with 
Augustine.  The  youth  was  soon  deep  in 
the  dissipations  of  Carthage,  it  appears,  but 
Augustine  one  day  made  a  scornful  attack 
on  the  attractions  of  the  circus  at  a  lecture 
at  which  Alypius  happened  to  be  present, 
and  the  spell  of  the  circenses  was  broken. 
From  that  time  Alypius  became  his  most 
devoted  admirer,  though  Augustine  had 
again  to  rescue  him,  later,  from  the  more 
brutal  charms  of  the  amphitheatre. 

During  the  nine  years  which  elapsed  be- 
tween his  first  contact  with  Manicheism 
and  his  departure  from  Africa,  Augustine  was 
resolutely  advancing  towards  the  heights  of 
his  early  vision.  The  enthusiasm  of  his  first 
acceptance  of  Manicheism  did  not  last 
many  years.  It  was  not  that  his  ideas  were 
taking  a  shape  which  was  incompatible  with 
the  materialist  conceptions  of  the  system. 


Mental  Growth  73 

It  was  not  until  five  years  later,  when  the 
translation  of  certain  Neo-Platonic  works 
opened  out  to  him  the  entirely  new  world 
of  Pythagorean  and  Platonist  thought,  that 
he  began  to  feel  the  impropriety  of  his 
physical  conception  of  God  and  the  soul. 
Nor  had  he  yet  so  definite  an  idea  of  the 
infinite  as  to  perceive  the  absurdity  of  ad- 
mitting two  deities,  as  the  Manicheans  vir- 
tually professed.  His  real  mental  growth 
consisted  in  an  accumulation  of  disjointed 
facts  and  thoughts,  the  formation  of  a  treas- 
ury of  knowledge  which  could  be  drawn 
upon  in  the  later  years  when  reading  was 
no  longer  possible,  and  science  and  profane 
history  were  accounted  frivolity.  But  he 
had  no  leading  thoughts  wherewith  to  order 
the  storing  of  his  harvest,  and  to  his  last 
days  his  erudition,  such  as  it  was,  remained 
an  uncritical  and  an  undigested  mass.1 

Augustine  is  really  unfortunate  in  the 
causes  he  assigns  for  his  early  revolt  against 
the  Manichean  system.  He  seems  to  indi- 
cate two  chief  lines  of  criticism,  when  we 

1  So  also  says  Nourisson,  in  his  Philosophic  de  Saint- Augustin. 


74  St.  Augustine 

set  aside  the  destructive  analysis  he  makes 
of  it  after  he  has  assimilated  Platonic  ideas. 
He  alleged  " scientific"  difficulties  against 
the  Manichean  scriptures,  and  moral  diffi- 
culties against  its  elect.  After  all,  we  do 
not  change  wholly  with  the  ages.  But, 
quite  apart  from  the  question  of  principle, 
Augustine  was  not  fortunate  in  many  of  his 
points.  His  liking  for  divination  had  in- 
duced him  to  make  a  close  study  of  astro- 
logy and  astronomy.  From  this  science  he 
seems  to  have  forged  weapons  which  his 
Manichean  friends  could  not  parry.  Their 
sacred  books  naturally  contained  much  as- 
sertion about  the  nature  and  the  motions  of 
the  heavenly  bodies.  Augustine  says  he 
found  a  good  deal  of  this  to  be  erroneous, 
and  he  began  to  pose  as  a  scientific  heretic. 
Probably  he  was  right  on  some  points.  But 
it  had  been  better  for  science  if  he  had 
penetrated  a  little  deeper  into  astronomy  in 
his  early  years.  He  and  other  Fathers  of 
the  Church  only  succeeded  in  prolonging 
throughout  the  whole  of  the  Middle  Ages 
the  life  of  errors  which    Manicheism  and 


Mental  Growth  75 

Neo-Platonism  were  beginning  to  uproot. 
For  instance,  he  denied  against  the  Mani- 
cheans  the  sphericity  of  the  earth  and  the 
existence  of  the  antipodes,  as  he  denied 
against  the  Epicureans  the  plurality  of 
worlds  and  other  truths.  Nor  can  we  re- 
cognise a  more  solid  grievance  against  his 
religion  in  his  complaint  that  it  did  not 
teach  the  cause  of  the  equinox  and  the 
solstice. 

There  was  probably  more  force,  though 
no  better  logic,  in  his  quarrel  with  their 
morality.  The  man  who  nowadays  secedes 
from  a  Christian  Church  on  such  grounds  is 
very  justly  regarded  as  wanting  in  strength 
of  character.  One  fails  to  see  why  Augus- 
tine should  be  so  loudly  applauded  for 
leaving  the  Manicheans  because  he  found 
some  corruption  amongst  its  elect.  Indeed, 
in  so  gentle  an  age  as  this,  when  it  is  consid- 
ered dishonourable  to  unmask  the  hypocrisy 
one  has  left  behind  for  quite  other  reasons, 
it  is  remarkable  how  much  admiration  is 
felt  for  Augustine's  vicious  little  treatise, 
On  the  Morals  of  the  Manichees.    The  truth 


76  St.  Augustine 

is  that  even  he  has  little  accredited  scandal 
to  tell  of  them,  however  well  disposed  we 
may  be  to  accept  it.  After  his  nine  years' 
intercourse  with  them,  the  only  convincing 
story  he  tells  is  that  he  once  saw  some  elect 
behaving  rather  improperly  in  the  open 
street.  The  rest  is  all  hearsay,  and  comes 
from  feminine  sources.  The  Manichean 
clergy  were  evidently  either  much  better  or 
much  cleverer  than  the  Christian.  With 
regard  to  the  more  depraved  matters,  in 
fact,  Augustine  has  nothing  but  strained 
inferences  from  their  doctrines  to  offer  his 
fellow-Christians. 

Whenever  Augustine  related  his  difficul- 
ties to  his  fellows,  he  was  met  with  the 
assurance  that  a  certain  bishop  of  theirs, 
Faustus  of  Mileve,  would  answer  them 
when  he  came  to  Carthage.  In  383  the 
famous  bishop  came,  and  Augustine  con- 
sulted him.  The  result  was  a  final 
disillusion.  A  man  of  fine  carriage  and  cap- 
tivating manners,  a  fluent  and  eloquent 
speaker,  Faustus  had  hitherto  not  felt  a 
pressing  need  for  mere  erudition.     The  type 


Mental  Growth  yy 

of  apologist  is  familiar  to  most  of  us.  But 
Augustine  was  the  obstinate  young  man, 
who  had  definite  questions  and  insisted  on 
having  definite  answers.  "What  availed 
the  utmost  neatness  of  the  cupbearer  to 
my  thirst  for  a  more  precious  draught?" 
Faustus  knew  no  science  save  grammar, 
and  shrank  from  the  young  astrologer,  who 
was  insusceptible  to  his  charms.  The 
episode  ended  in  the  almost  total  collapse 
of  Augustine's  belief,  but  without  bitter- 
ness. "  He  had  a  heart,  and  frankly  avowed 
his  ignorance,"  says  Augustine.  In  fact,  he 
began  to  read  with  Augustine,  and  con- 
tinued friendly  relations  with  him  for  some 
time.  But  in  the  later  years,  when  his 
beliefs  have  hardened  and  controversy  has 
somewhat  soured  the  milk  of  his  kindness, 
Augustine  presents  his  opponent  in  a  less 
flattering  light.  He  is  described  (Contra 
Faustum)  as  a  man  of  poor  parentage,  who 
has  made  his  way  by  cunning  rather  than 
conviction,  and  who  conceals  most  luxuri- 
ous habits  behind  a  profession  of  unworld- 
liness.     If  the  share  in  the  dialogues  which 


78  St.  Augustine 

is  accredited  to  Faustus  correctly  represents 
his  words,  he  was  a  polished,  witty,  and 
acute  speaker,  but  superficial.  But  where 
Plato  is  abused,  Faustus  must  expect  little 
consideration. 

Thus,  in  his  twenty-ninth  year,  Augustine 
has  had  his  first  disillusion.  His  faith  in  the 
Manichean  key  to  the  universe  was  de- 
stroyed. He  says  he  still  had  a  feeling  that 
perhaps  his  difficulties  could  be  removed, 
but  it  is  apparently  a  mere  shadow  of  hope, 
transient  and  intangible.  Yet  Christianity 
was  as  repulsive  to  him  as  ever.  He  vaguely 
recalls  the  many  philosophies  to  which 
Cicero  had  alluded—  if  he  had  not  outlined 
them  —  in  the  Hortensius.  And  with  still 
youthful  energy  he  resumes  his  Sisyphean 
task. 

But  this  disillusion  seems  to  have  com- 
pleted a  growing  burden  of  discontent  with 
Africa.  With  the  broadening  of  his  mental 
horizon  the  distant  splendour  of  Rome  began 
to  find  a  reflection  in  his  thoughts.  His 
friends  told  him  that  successful  rhetoricians 
made  large  fortunes  in  the  Eternal  City,  and 


Mental  Growth  79 

that  the  pupils  were  better  behaved.  At 
Carthage  the  youths  would  rush  into  the 
lecture-room  in  the  middle  of  the  lecture, 
and  bear  away  their  companions  with  an 
intolerable  turmoil.  He  resolved  to  sail  for 
Rome.  Years  afterwards  his  heretical  op- 
ponents said  he  had  been  driven  from  Africa 
by  the  decrees  which  Messianus,  the  pro- 
consul, passed  against  the  Manichees.  It  is 
true  that  Augustine  still  counted  himself  a 
Manichean  ;  "not  seeing  anything  better, 
I  resolved  to  remain  where  I  was  until  some- 
thing more  eligible  appeared  "  ;  but  the  de- 
crees of  Messianus  were  not  passed  until 
three  years  after  his  departure. 

A  detail  of  his  departure,  which  one  would 
rather  suppress,  must  be  noticed.  After 
vainly  urging  him  not  to  leave  Africa,  his 
mother  insisted  on  accompanying  him  to 
Rome.  We  can  well  understand  that  the 
proposal  did  not  please  Augustine,  and 
placed  him  in  a  difficult  situation.  But  the 
manner  of  his  escape  from  it  was  unpardon- 
able. He  persuaded  her  to  spend  the  night 
before  their  departure  in  a  chapel  near  the 


80  St.  Augustine 

quay.  During  the  night  he  sailed  for  Ostia. 
Augustine's  frank  confession  in  some  meas- 
ure redeems  the  meanness  and  cowardice  of 
his  act. 


Chapter  IV 

The  Eternal  City 

\  XfHEN  Augustine  came  to  Rome  in  384 
v  v  he  saw  almost  the  last  gleam  of  its  an- 
cient splendour.  The  genius  of  the  Eternal 
City  had  departed,  and,  heavy  with  the  ruth- 
less spoils  of  the  world,  it  was  already  totter- 
ing to  its  fall.  Far  away  on  the  northern  and 
north-eastern  frontier  the  stream  of  Huns 
and  Goths  and  Vandals  was  swelling  its  ir- 
resistible flood  against  the  weakening  bar- 
riers. The  vultures  gathered  thick  upon  the 
mountain  -  fringe  of  the  Empire.  But  the 
Romans  were  to  "  die  with  a  smile  on  their 
lips,"  as  Salvianus  afterwards  said  of  them. 
Augustine  found  the  gold-and-marble  city 
of  three  centuries  of  Caesars  in  undiminished 
splendour,  and  the  life  of  its  infatuated  peo- 
ple making  its  seven  hills  ring  with  their 
demented  laughter.     He  is  almost  wholly 

si 


82  St.  Augustine 

silent  about  the  scenes  he  witnessed.  Hap- 
pily, there  came  to  Rome,  somewhere  about 
the  same  time,  a  war-v/orn  veteran  from  the 
front,  Ammianus  Marcellinus.  From  his 
scornful  pages  we  can  picture  to  ourselves 
the  life  of  Rome  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
fourth  century.1 

We  can  almost  fancy  ourselves  lying  with 
a  group  of  Roman  citizens  in  ragged  togce, 
playing  dice,  under  the  cool  colonnade  of  one 
of  the  emperors'  for  a,  or  the  Roman  forum, 
and  watching  the  stream  of  life  as  it  passes. 
Rich  patricians,  with  loosely  swollen 
cheeks  and  thick,  hanging  lips,  fly  past  us 
in  gold-plated  chariots,  drawn  by  swift 
teams  of  Spanish  horses,  a  dozen  tunics  and 
mantles  of  all  but  transparent  silk  fluttering 
about  them.  Young  dandies,  already  old  in 
vice  and  luxury,  ride  or  walk  along,  their 
fine  mantles  shaken  out  now  and  again  with 
a  wave  of  the  left  arm  to  display  the  figures 
embroidered  on  them,  and  the  silk  dragons 
that  hiss  in  the  wind,  and  the  dainty  little 

1  In  the  following  sketch  1  have  completed,  or  corrected,  the  test- 
imony of  Ammianus  by  that  of  St.  Jerome,  Symmachus,  Claudianus, 
Prudentius,  Paulinus  of  Nola,  Macrobius,  and  others. 


The  Eternal  City  83 

shoes  embroidered  with  ivy  leaves ;  a  sec- 
retary-slave walks  with  them,  suggesting  to 
their  flaccid  memory  whom  they  know  and 
must  salute.  Roman  matrons  pass  by  in 
litters,  or  in  carriages  drawn  by  four  white 
mules.  For  woman  is  no  longer  confined 
to  the  gynecceum.  Stoic  philosophy  and 
Christian  religion  have  won  freedom  for  her. 
And  now  she  leans  proudly  back  in  her 
litter,  her  hair  rising  into  a  tower,  bristling 
with  points  and  bars  of  gold,  her  eyes  di- 
lated with  antimony,  her  eyelashes  and 
eyebrows  dyed,  her  lips  a  brilliant  and  re- 
freshing vermilion, —  she  has  been  chewing 
wood  to  provoke  the  saliva, —  her  face  and 
neck  coated  with  white,  the  price  of  a  forest 
hanging  from  her  ears,  her  tunic  a  stiff  mass 
of  cloth  of  gold;  or  perhaps  she  is  a  Christ- 
ian, and  a  crowd  of  urchins  follow,  gazing 
at  the  wonderful  embroideries  on  her  silk 
mantle,  representing  the  poverty  of  Christ, 
and  the  sorrows  of  Job,  and  so  forth.  Here 
a  widow,  or  a  divorced  (perhaps  for  the 
tenth  time)  matron,  is  borne  sedately  along, 
the  whole  army  of  her  slaves,  even  to  the 


84  St.  Augustine 


b 


kitchen-slaves,  marching  before  the  litter, 
and  a  second  army,  of  eunuchs,  bringing  up 
the  rear.  There  a  pedagogue  leads  along 
her  children,  their  shoes  made  to  creak 
nicely,  their  hair  dyed  red,  their  faces  painted 
like  her  own.  At  one  moment  the  sun 
glitters  on  the  jewelled  fingers  and  buckled 
and  perfumed  locks  of  a  Christian  priest,  and 
the  next  it  flashes  on  the  painted  face  and 
the  gay  tunic  of  a  sexless  priest  of  Cybele 
or  the  shaven  head  and  face  of  a  votary  of 
lsis.  So  the  tide  ebbs  and  flows  through  the 
Roman  forum,  and  the  forum  of  Trajan, 
—  "the  most  exquisite  structure  under 
heaven,"  says  Ammianus, —  and  along  the 
Via  Sacra  and  up  the  clivus  of  the  Capitol, 
where  the  golden  roof  of  the  great  temple 
of  Jove  still  flings  back  the  rays  of  the  sun, 
or  past  the  deserted  Palatine  to  the  Circus 
Maximus,  or  to  the  Thermce  Antoniniance 
(baths  of  Caracalla),  until  at  last  the  sun 
sinks  behind  the  Vatican,  and  Rome  turns 
to  other  amusements. 

Follow  one  of  the  swift  chariots  with  the 
plates  of  gold  and  the  Hashing  gems,  until 


The  Eternal  City  85 

it  halts  before  one  of  the  great  senatorial 
palaces.  Gold-dust  is,  perhaps,  strewn  on 
its  polished  marble  steps,  for  the  safety  of 
the  nerveless  limbs.  The  chances  are  that 
fawning  eunuchs  must  help  the  senator  up 
the  steps  and  between  the  tall  colums  of 
Parian  marble,  with  gilded  capitals,  into  the 
vestibule  with  its  silver  chairs  and  couches, 
its  walls  incrusted  with  mosaics  and  many- 
coloured  African  marbles,  its  ceiling  of  cedar 
and  silver,  its  rare  trees  growing  between 
the  rafters,  and  rare  birds  nesting  in  their 
branches.  He  is  bathed  and  clothed  afresh, 
and  rearranged  by  his  barber  and  tailor. 
Then  he  goes  to  meet  his  guests,  and  pre- 
side at  his  vulgar  banquet.  His  nomenclator, 
or  secretary-slave,  has  arranged  the  names, 
reaping  a  generous  harvest  from  the  in- 
vited, for  gold  pieces  are  often  given  after 
the  banquet.  Then,  after  the  basket  of 
"appetisers"  has  gone  round,  the  slaves 
bring  in  the  fishes  and  birds  that  have  been 
brought  from  the  ends  of  the  Empire; 
"thirty  secretaries,"  so  says  Ammianus, 
standing  by  with  their  tabellce  and  their 


86  St.  Augustine 

scales  to  note  the  weight  of  the  peacock,  or 
parrot,  or  pheasant,  or  whatever  it  may  be, 
that  the  obsequious  guests  are  praising. 
And  when  they  lean  back  on  the  couch, 
clutching  their  rose-crowned  silver  cups, 
hydraulic  organs,  and  "lyres  as  large  as 
chariots,"  and  flutes,  make  merry  music; 
the  perfumed  oil  in  the  lamps  mingles  its 
intoxication  with  that  of  the  old  Falernian 
wine;  and  pretty  Eastern  slaves  dance  vo- 
luptuous dances,  and  mimes  play  their  las- 
civious parts,  until  men  and  women  alike 
sink  into  the  roses  on  the  floor,  and  are 
borne  home  by  their  laughing  slaves. 

Such  was  the  Roman  patrician  in  the  fourth 
century,  according  to  Ammianus.  Of  the 
broader  political  condition  of  the  Empire 
he  knew  little;  of  its  economic  condition, 
nothing.  He  knew  only  that  the  stewards 
still  wrung  some  five  or  ten  million  sesterces 
annually  out  of  his  estates  in  Gaul  and  Spain 
and  Africa,  and  so  he  could  buy  the  prettiest 
slaves  and  finest  wines  and  swiftest  racers 
in  Rome,  and  entertain  his  fawning  clients 
and  successful  charioteers,  and  occasionally 


The  Eternal  City  87 

give  the  Roman  mob  an  additional  spectacle 
in  the  amphitheatre.  His  library  was  "  like 
a  tomb. "  It  was  the  heyday  of  barbers,  and 
cooks,  and  sorcerers,  and  charioteers.  A 
few  years  earlier,  when  the  city  had  been 
threatened  with  famine,  they  had  deported 
from  it  all  its  scholars  and  teachers,  but  had 
kept  their  three  thousand  singing-girls,  with 
their  masters  and  choruses.  Macrobius  tells 
a  story  of  one  of  these  patricians,  whose 
slaves  had  adjusted  the  folds  of  his  toga 
with  the  usual  care  before  he  went  out.  He 
was  passing  through  a  narrow  place  with  an 
acquaintance,  and  the  latter  brushed  against 
him,  and  disarranged  his  precious  folds.  He 
intrusted  the  matter  to  his  lawyers  at  once 
—  lawyers  whom  you  could  swear  Dickens 
had  copied  line  for  line  from  the  pages  of 
Ammianus.  These  were  the  lords  of  Rome 
in  380,  when  the  Goths  were  moving  rest- 
lessly along  the  frontier  of  the  Empire;  men 
whose  supreme  effort  was  to  order  a  slave 
three  hundred  stripes  if  he  were  a  minute 
late  with  his  service;  who  could  not  take  a 
bath  without  having  the  planets  consulted; 


88  St.  Augustine 

who    "thought    they    had    equalled    the 
marches  of  Alexander"  if  they  drove  to  see 
their  estates  or  "sailed  in  painted  boats  from 
Lake  A  vermis  to  Pozzuoli  or  Cajeta";and 
who  "grumbled  that  they  had  not  been 
born    amongst   the    Cimmerians    if  a   fly 
alighted  on  their  silken  fringes  or  a  ray  of 
the  sun  found  its  way  through  the  awning." 
Nor  did  Ammianus  find  much  more  of 
the  old  Roman  spirit  in  the  lower  classes. 
Amongst  the  million  or  so  of  people  who 
then  dwelt  in  the  1790  palaces  and  46,600 
tenement-blocks  of  the  city,  there  were  — 
apart  from  the  wealthy  and  their  vast  follow- 
ing of  slaves,  parasites,  and  dependants,  and 
the  hereditary  corporations  of  bakers,  butch- 
ers, etc. —  some  200,000  or  300,000  free  citi- 
zens who  subsisted  on  the  public  distribution 
of  food.     From   morning  until   night  they 
lounged  about  the  for  a  and  the  wine-shops, 
playing  dice,  and  discussing  the  latest  or  the 
next  games  in  the  circus.     When  the  hour 
for  the  distribution  of  bread  came  — later 
emperors  had  increased  the  folly  by  add- 
ing pork  and  wine  and  oil  — they  gathered 


The  Eternal  City  89 

shamelessly  on  the  "  bread-steps,"  where 
the  bronze  tablets  exhibited  the  roll  of  hon- 
our, and  received  their  rations.  Then  per- 
haps they  earned  a  little  money  from  some 
senator  or  charioteer  by  promising  their  sup- 
port at  the  next  race,  and  returned  to  the 
dice  -  board,  and  the  wine  -  cup,  and  the 
thickly  clustered  fomices  down  the  Subura. 
At  the  princely  Antoninian  baths,  where 
there  were  marble  seats  for  1600  bathers, 
they  could  steam  and  bathe  themselves, 
exercise  in  the  palcestra,  and  lounge  in  the 
peristyle,  for  a  farthing.  Perhaps  it  was  a 
day  of  religious  feasting,  and  they  flocked  to 
the  temples  —  Christian  as  well  as  pagan  — 
and  gorged  themselves  with  food,  and  reeled 
with  intoxication,  in  honour  of  any  god  or 
goddess  that  chanced  to  have  wealthy  ad- 
mirers. Or  it  may  have  been  one  of  the  1 75 
days  of  public  games,  or  the  day  of  a  special 
feast  given  by  some  rich  senator;  Sym- 
machus  spent  ^90,000  on  the  games  he 
provided  to  celebrate  the  praetorship  of  his 
son  —  bringing  dogs  from  Scotland  (a  rare 
treat),  horses  from  Spain,  lions  from  Africa, 


90  St.  Augustine 

gladiators  from  Saxony,  tigers,  elephants, 
comedians,  and  so  forth,  from  all  parts  of 
the  world.  Those  were  the  days  when  life 
ran  swiftly  in  Rome.  Rising  from  almost 
sleepless  beds  in  some  upper  story  in  the 
Subura,  they  would  rush  to  the  Circus 
Maximus  at  early  dawn,  and  discuss  the 
prospects  of  the  greens  and  the  blues  (the 
great  circus  factions  of  the  fourth  century) 
with  a  frenzy  that  bordered  on  madness. 
And  when  at  length  the  presiding  magistrate 
dropped  the  napkin,  and  the  chariots  shot 
along  the  course,  the  380,000  spectators 
could  not  have  been  distracted  from  the 
momentous  issue  for  one  of  the  rival  factions 
if  the  Goths  had  appeared  at  the  gate  of  the 
Circus.  The  following  day  they  would  pour 
into  the  great  amphitheatre  (Colosseum), 
and  its  silken  awnings  would  swell  hour 
after  hour  with  the  roar  of  90,000  voices,  as 
the  blood  of  man  and  beast  thickened  the 
sands  of  the  arena;  the  magistrates,  the 
pontiffs,  and  the  Vestal  Virgins  smiling  ap- 
proval from  the  podium.  These  were  the 
men  before  whom  prefects  of  the  city  trem- 


The  Eternal  City  91 

bled  when  the  corn-ships  from  Africa  were 
delayed,  or  the  wine  ran  short,  or  the  in- 
solence of  some  favourite  charioteer  or  glad- 
iator forced  the  prefects  to  arrest  him.  These 
were  the  men  who  could  no  longer  lift  a 
Roman  shield,  and  who  mutilated  them- 
selves to  avoid  military  service  when  they 
were  not  exempted  from  it.  And  the  vul- 
tures saw,  and  gathered  thicker  on  the 
hills. 

That  is  the  picture  of  Roman  life  which 
we  find  in  the  caustic  pages  of  Ammianus 
and  the  vivid  letters  of  St.  Jerome.  St. 
Ambrose  confirms  much  of  it  in  his  sermons; 
he  even  speaks  of  matrons  reeling  out  of 
palaces,  at  the  close  of  the  banquets,  into 
the  brilliantly  lighted  streets.  St.  August- 
ine's picture  of  life  in  Africa  is  in  full  agree- 
ment. St.  Chrysostom's  picture  of  life  at 
Christian  Constantinople  is  somewhat  more 
repulsive.  And  so  the  world  talks  freely  of 
the  unutterable  vice  of  Rome,  and  finds  no 
mystery  in  its  fall.  The  world  is  wrong. 
That  the  corruption  of  Rome,  for  several 
centuries  dissolving  the  physical  and  moral 


92  St.  Augustine 

vigour  of  the  race,  aided  the  process  of  de- 
struction is  beyond  question;  but  one  might 
as  well  say  that  Christian  Spain  has  fallen 
for  its  sins  as  make  that  affirmation  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  Modern  historians  find 
only  too  sufficient  reasons  for  the  fall  of 
Rome  without  weighing  transcendental 
theories  about  the  consequence  of  its  vices 
—  the  incessant  war,  foreign  and  domestic, 
of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries;  the  divis- 
ion of  the  Empire;  the  extinction  of  the 
agricultural  population  from  which  the  army 
had  been  recruited;  the  expensive  employ- 
ment of  mercenaries;  the  instruction  of  the 
barbarian  in  the  art  of  war;  the  stupid  fiscal 
policy,  eternally  grasping  and  ruining,  never 
fostering;  the  pauperisation  and  degradation 
of  the  people  of  the  capitals;  the  quarrels 
and  intrigues  of  rival  religions;  the  decay  ot 
patriotism,  partly  through  the  debauching 
generosity  of  timid  emperors  and  ambitious 
officers,  partly  through  the  effect  of  Christ- 
ian Reaching  on  some  of  the  best  spirits  of 
the  time;  the  utter  demoralisation,  in  the 
trail  of  imperial  expansion,  of  the  old  Roman 


The  Eternal  City  93 

religion.  It  was  not  so  much  a  change  in 
her  morals  as  in  her  whole  political  and 
economic  system  that  Rome  needed,  if  she 
were  to  resist  the  encroaching  tide  of  bar- 
barians. In  the  year  384  such  a  change  was 
beyond  the  power  of  a  miracle. 

The  truth  is  that  those  who  talk  thus  of 
the  unutterable  vice  of  Rome  usually  shrink 
from  a  careful  study  of  vice  in  any  age.1  In 
reality  Rome  had  made  considerable  moral 
advance  in  the  fourth  century.  To  form  a 
picture  of  Roman  life  solely  from  the  pages 
of  Ammianus  and  St.  Jerome,  as  so  many 
do,  is  as  reasonable  and  just  as  it  would 
be  to  judge  modern  France  on  the  sole 
testimony  of  Zola's  novels  and  Nordau's 
criticisms.  Ammianus  felt  the  scorn  of  a 
hardened  warrior  for  the  luxury  of  Rome; 
indeed,  it  is  suspected  that  his  indignation 
is  fed  by  some  personal  grievance.  St.  Je- 
rome is  as  safe  a  guide  to  other  people's 
morals  as  we  found  St.  Augustine  to  be  on 

1  For  an  instance  of  the  confusion  of  mind  in  which  historians  of  a 
certain  type  view  the  vices  of  Rome  and  connect  them  with  its  fall 
the  reader  may  study  Mr.  Sheppard's  Fall  of  Rome,  p.  80,  and  such 
works  as  those  of  Villemain,  Ozanam,  Dollinger,  etc. 


94  St.  Augustine 

his  own  earlier  years.  Yet  Mr.  Dill  con- 
tends that  even  the  picture  they  give  us  is 
no  worse  than  one  could  truthfully  give  of 
English  society  in  the  reigns  of  George  II. 
and  George  III.1  Boissier  thinks  the  time 
recalls  the  age  of  Trajan  and  Antonine. 

In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  observed 
that  a  great  change  had  taken  place  in 
the  condition  of  woman,  the  child,  and 
the  slave.  I  have  already  indicated  that  the 
paterfamilias  had  ceased  to  exercise  a  de- 
spotic authority  in  the  home.  Woman,  it  is 
true,  had  largely  abused  her  new  liberty  — 
though  there  were  fine  ''pagan"  women, 
of  the  type  of  the  wife  of  Praetextatus,  as 
well  as  refined  Christian  women,  at  Rome 
in  384;  but,  regarded  in  principle,  the  change 
argued  an  important  ethical  modification 
in  the  Roman  mind.  The  Due  de  Broglie 
has  generously  recognised  this  outcome  of 
Stoic  influence.  M.  Thamin2  has  even  en- 
titled one  of  his  chapters  "The  Christianity 
of  Paganism,"  in  view  of  the  gradual  per- 

1  Roman  Society  in  the  Last  Century  of  the  Western  Empire,  p.  123. 
9  St.  Ambroise  et  la  morale  Chretienne. 


The  Eternal  City  95 

meation  of  pagan  thought  with  elevated 
Stoic  principles.  The  facility  for  divorce 
had  been  greatly  restricted  (in  331),  though 
the  law  was  still  too  lax ;  when  Jerome 
speaks  of  the  marriage  of  a  man  who  had 
buried  twenty  wives  to  a  woman  who  had 
had  twenty-two  husbands,  we  are  justified 
in  questioning  the  correctness  of  his  informa- 
tion— or  of  the  "marriages."  There  was  a  re- 
markable change  taking  place  in  the  attitude 
of  the  cultured  pagan  towards  the  slave. 
The  Saturnalia  of  Macrobius  consists  of  a 
series  of  conversations  attributed  to  a  group 
of  the  leading  pagan  senators  of  the  last  quar- 
ter of  the  fourth  century.  In  one  of  these 
discussions  the  question  of  the  slave  is  in- 
troduced, and  almost  all  the  speakers  are 
credited  with  most  humane  sentiments  in 
his  regard;  nor  is  there  any  question  here 
of  Christian  influence.  The  days  were  long 
since  passed  when  a  master  could  cast  a 
slave  into  his  piscina  to  feed  his  precious 
fishes,  or  crucify  him  for  disobedience. 

In  fact,  this  same  Macrobius,  writing  to- 
wards the  close  of  the  fourth  century,  gives 


96  St.  Augustine 

us  quite  a  new  picture  of  Roman  life.  M. 
A.  Thierry,  in  his  Life  of  St.  Jerome,  contends 
that  "the  second  half  of  the  fourth  century 
was  undoubtedly  the  epoch  of  greatest  lux- 
ury at  Rome  and  in  Italy."  The  picture 
which  Macrobius  gives  us  in  the  third  book 
of  the  Saturnalia  completely  disproves  this. 
Here  we  have  a  group  of  Roman  senators  of 
the  highest  rank  discussing  "  the  luxury  of 
the  ancients  "  as  something  quite  unknown 
to  their  own  age.  O.  Miiller,  in  his  exhaust- 
ive study  De  genio,  luxu,  et  moribus  cevi 
Theodosiani ,  remarks  that  the  only  reason 
is  because  they  have  less  money  than  the 
patricians  of  the  first  century.  I  do  not 
think  that  is  a  candid  interpretation  of  Ma- 
crobius. He  speaks,  not  with  regret,  but 
with  polite  censure,  of  the  days  when  sen- 
ators watered  their  trees  with  wine,  paid 
vast  sums  of  money  for  rare  fish,  dined  off 
peacocks'  eggs  and  larks'  tongues,  and  re- 
sorted to  devices  of  gluttony  which  are  too 
repulsive  to  dwell  upon;  "Nunc  pretia  hcec 
insana  nesdtnus."  He  even  speaks  of  the 
practice  of  introducing  dancing -girls  into 


The  Eternal  City  97 

the  banquet-room  as  extinct;  though  we 
know  that  in  this  he  cannot  have  been 
speaking  for  the  whole  of  Rome.  We  are 
bound  to  oppose  Macrobius  to  Ammianus. 

But,  further,  we  have  a  more  direct  know- 
ledge of  this  better  side  of  the  dying  Rome 
than  the  imaginary  discourses  of  the  Saturn- 
alia. The  leading  characters  of  that  work 
are  historical  personages.  The  host,  Vet- 
tius  Agorius  Praetextatus,  with  his  friends, 
Symmachus  and  Flavianus,  formed  the 
centre  of  a  group  of  patricians  who  do  much 
to  redeem  the  vulgarity  depicted  in  the 
more  frequently  quoted  Ammianus.  The 
letters  of  Symmachus,  prefect  of  the  city 
in  384,  introduce  us  to  a  world  into  which 
the  soldier-critic  had  evidently  not  pene- 
trated, a  world  of  serious,  refined,  cultured, 
and  temperate  Roman  senators,  who  com- 
mand respect.  Symmachus  was  the  most 
distinguished  letter-writer  in  that  age  of 
epistolary  art.  His  brief  but  elaborately 
wrought  epistles  were  read  to  admiring 
crowds  of  Romans.  There  were  even  those 
who  engaged  thieves  to  intercept  the  slaves 


98  St.  Augustine 

who  conveyed  them.  We  have  a  large 
collection,  in  ten  books,  of  these  letters; 
and,  though  they  are  surprisingly  disap- 
pointing in  respect  of  the  historical  inform- 
ation they  afford  us,  they  do,  nevertheless, 
reveal  the  existence  of  a  body  of  patricians 
of  admirable  type.  In  some  instances,  as 
in  the  case  of  Prastextatus,  sometime  pro- 
consul of  Achaia  and  prefect  of  Rome,  we 
know  that  the  wife  was  no  less  worthy, 
and  no  less  sincerely  devoted  to  the  old 
Roman  religion,  than  the  husband.  These 
men  were  probably  less  rich  than  the 
Romans  we  have  described  above.  The 
income  of  men  like  Symmachus  —  who 
had  three  houses  in  Rome  and  fifteen  villas 
in  various  parts  of  Italy  — is  estimated  to 
have  been  about  ,£60,000  per  year;  the 
income  of  the  richer  Romans  of  the  time 
is  said  to  have  reached  about  ,£180,000  per 
year.  But,  such  as  their  wealth  was,  they 
made  a  sober  and  unselfish  use  of  it,  and 
were  proud  to  exhibit  the  finer  ideal  of 
ancient  Rome,  purged  of  many  of  its  de- 
fects, in  the  closing  years  of  the  Empire. 


The  Eternal  City  99 

Unhappily,  even  these  reveal  no  sense  of 
the  dangers  that  menace  the  Empire.  If 
we  may  trust  the  poet  Claudianus,  such 
apprehension  as  was  felt  was  directed,  in 
strange  perversity,  towards  distant  Persia. 
To  their  real  dangers  they  seem  quite  in- 
sensible. We  can  only  say,  first,  that  the 
removal  of  power  from  Rome  almost  re- 
moved responsibility  from  the  senators; 
and,  second,  that  they  were  involved  in  a 
struggle  for  the  maintenance  of  a  religion 
which  they  thought  essential  to  the  life 
of  the  Empire. 

Thus,  when  we  set  Macrobius  against 
Ammianus,  and  Symmachus  against  Jerome, 
—  I  would  add,  if  it  did  not  go  beyond  our 
period,  Ausonius  against  Salvianus, —  we 
obtain  a  truer  and  fuller  impression  of  the 
life  of  Rome.  If  the  paint  and  tinsel  and 
vulgarity  and  passion  were  all  in  that  life, 
there  would  be  some  ground  for  the  edify- 
ing phrases  of  the  ecclesiastical  historian. 
But  pagan  Rome  —  Christian  Rome  I  re- 
serve for  the  next  chapter  — was  far  from 
being  wholly  corrupt.     There  is  hardly  a 


ioo  St.  Augustine 

trait  in  the  darker  picture  which  has  not 
its  counterpart  in  modern  life.  With  one 
exception ;  we  have,  happily,  nothing  to 
correspond  to  the  quarter  of  a  million  of 
stout  frames  that  were  rotting  in  idleness 
in  imperial  Rome,  consuming  in  a  life  of 
heartless  and  senseless  pleasure  the  blood 
and  sinews  of  the  Empire,  which  they 
thought  they  could  prey  on  for  ever.  Na- 
ture reminded  them  that  social  life  has  its 
laws,  moral,  political,  and  economic.1 

1  As  to  what  we  call  immorality  in  the  narrower  sense,  I  will  be 
so  bold  as  to  make  a  brief  comparison  with  modern  times.  The 
phrases  one  meets  about  the  "  nameless  vices"  of  Rome  have  misled 
many  into  thinking  there  were  practices  then  in  vogue  which  are 
happily  unknown  to  the  modern  world.  Taking  the  unnatural 
forms  of  vice  as  they  are  enumerated  in  Rosenbaum's  Geschichte  der 
Lustsenche,  any  person  of  moderate  information  in  these  matters  will 
recognise  that  all  of  them  are  appallingly  prevalent  in  modern 
Europe  ;  indeed,  some  of  the  most  repulsive  of  them  are  more 
prevalent  to-day  than  we  have  any  definite  reason  for  thinking 
they  were  at  Rome  in  the  fourth  century.  As  to  forms  of  vice 
which  are  not  physiologically  unnatural,  it  would  be  idle  to  question 
the  general  absence  of  moral  restraint  in  the  fourth  century.  But  it 
is  open  to  question  if  Rome  had  as  high  a  proportion  of  lupanaria, 
and  offered  as  flagrant  an  advertisement  of  vice,  as  modern  London; 
and  it  is  certain  that  adultery  (in  the  complete  sense)  was  infinitely 
less  prevalent  (witness  the  prosecutions  of  368),  and  the  exhibition 
of  obscenity  permitted  by  public  authority  was  no  worse,  than  in 
modern  Paris. 


Chapter  V 

The  Old  Gods  and  the  New 

IN  the  year  that  Augustine  came  to  Rome 
there  was  unusual  excitement  in  the 
Eternal  City.  Christianity  had  opened  in 
earnest  its  legislative  war  upon  the  old  re- 
ligion. The  long  peace  that  had  endured 
since  the  death  of  Julian  had  been  broken 
by  a  severe  blow  at  the  prestige  of  pagan- 
ism. Gratian  had  been  induced  to  confis- 
cate the  revenues  of  the  temples,  and  to 
annul  the  civic  and  political  privileges  of 
the  pontiffs  and  the  Vestal  Virgins.  This 
was  in  382;  Gratian  was  betrayed  and  slain 
in  the  following  year.  But  when  the  pagan 
chiefs  approached  the  boy-emperor,  his  suc- 
cessor, it  was  only  to  receive  a  resolute 
confirmation  of  the  decree.  Augustine  came 
to  Rome  in  the  midst  of  the  profound  agita- 
tion which  was  caused  by  this  change  in 
the  imperial  policy. 


io2  St.  Augustine 

In  a  bucolic  poem  which  seems  to  have 
been  written  about  this  time  by  a  Christian, 
known  as  "  Endelechius,"  it  is  stated  that 
"the  Christian  God  alone  is  worshipped  in 
the  towns."  That  is  obviously  intended  to 
impress  the  ignorant  rustics,  but  it  is  an 
utterly  untrue  statement.  Augustine  left  a 
city  which  was  predominantly  pagan  for 
one  which  was  still  violently,  if  not  pro- 
foundly, attached  to  the  old  religion.  Four 
hundred  temples,  many  of  them  magnifi- 
cent museums  of  sculpture,  paintings,  jew- 
elry, etc.,  still  opened  their  doors  to  the 
worshippers.  The  great  Temple  of  Jupiter, 
with  its  golden  gates  and  golden  roof,  still 
crowned  the  Capitol.  The  gilded  statue  of 
Victory,  the  colossal  statue  of  Apollo,  and 
hundreds  of  others,  surrounded  the  Forum. 
Through  all  the  squares,  at  all  the  cross- 
roads, over  the  fountains,  baths,  arches,  and 
public  buildings,  the  marble  images  of  gods 
and  goddesses  were  still  enthroned.  Over 
every  door  was  the  tutelary  image,  before 
which  even  the  Christians  timidly  lit  their 
lamps  at  night,  pretending,  says  the  scorn- 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New       103 

ful  Jerome,  that  they  were  merely  lighting 
the  entrance.  The  obelisk  in  the  Circus 
still  marked  the  dedication  of  their  chief 
temple— "their  only  temple,"  growls  Am- 
mianus— to  the  sun.  The  games  were  still 
chiefly  connected  with  the  festivals  of  the 
gods.  The  Saturnalia  still  offered  their  pro- 
longed dissipation.  On  the  Lupercalia  (in 
February)  the  priests  of  Pan  still  ran  about 
the  streets  in  their  goatskin  cloths,  and  un- 
blushing matrons  met  the  blows  of  their 
whips.  In  March  the  priests  of  Cybele  de- 
descended  from  the  Palatine  for  the  great 
festival  of  "the  mother  of  the  gods." 
Augustine  describes  how  he  saw  them  in 
the  wild  license  of  their  "Easter  Sunday," 
which  closed  their  "Holy  Week"  of  lam- 
entation; when  they  took  the  black  stone, 
covered  with  a  silver  female  head,  which 
represented  the  goddess,  for  the  solemn  bath 
in  the  Almo,  and  returned  through  Rome  in 
an  orgie  of  rejoicing,  the  drums  and  horns 
and  howls  throwing  the  priests  into  a  per- 
fect madness  ;  though  Rome  had  forbid- 
den the  excesses  they  practised  in  the  East, 


o4  St.  Augustine 


& 


where  they  mutilated  themselves  in  the 
procession,  and  carried  the  bloody  emblem 
before  them.  In  June  the  meretrices  still 
celebrated  the  licentious  Floralia  in  the 
streets.  The  priests  of  Mars  still  danced 
and  sang  their  old  Latin  songs  on  the  public 
roads.  The  smoke  of  the  sacrifices  had  not 
ceased,  for  there  was  still  a  certain  source 
of  revenue — the  vectigalia  templorum,  a  fund 
instituted  to  pay  for  the  sacred  banquets 
and  games — besides  private  devotion.  Peo- 
ple still  slept  on  the  skins  of  the  sacrificed 
animals  in  the  temple  of  yfeculapius  for  the 
purpose  of  learning  the  future;  matrons  still 
sat  on  the  emblem  of  Priapus  to  ensure  fer- 
tility; men,  women,  and  children  still  hung 
their  ex-votos  in  the  temples,  and  consulted 
the  astrologers  and  sorcerers  as  to  every 
step  they  took.  They  still  had  a  god  or  a 
goddess  for  every  leaf  or  every  muscle. 
Augustine  describes  eleven  deities  who  pre- 
sided over  the  growth  of  corn.  They  had 
not  only  the  guardian  image  over  each 
door,  but  they  had  a  god  of  the  door, 
Forculus,  with    subsidiary  deities    for  the 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New       105 

threshold  and  the  hinges,  Limentinus  and 
Cardea.  Human  life  was  guarded  by  a 
stupendous  army  of  deities.  To  pass  over 
the  functions  of  Mena,  Virginiensis,  Subigus, 
Prema,  Pertunda,  Venus,  and  Priapus,  there 
was  Lucina  to  preside  at  the  birth,  Opis 
to  receive  the  child,  Vaticanus  to  open  its 
mouth,  Levana  to  lift  it  up,  Cunina  to 
watch  the  cradle,  and  Rumina,  Potina, 
Educa,  Parentia,  and  a  hundred  others. 
Religion  was  not  a  matter  to  fill  up  the 
idle  hours  of  a  Sunday  with  the  Romans; 
such  as  it  was,  it  was  coextensive  with  life. 
Further,  there  were  religions  in  Rome 
which  were  as  earnest  and  strenuous  as 
Christianity.  Renan  has  puzzled  many  peo- 
ple by  saying  that  if  the  progress  of  Christi- 
anity had  been  arrested  by  some  moral 
miracle  in  the  fourth  century,  Mithraism 
might  have  become  the  religion  of  the 
West;  most  people  being  under  the  fond 
impression  that  they  know  nothing  about 
Mithraism.  It  is  impossible  to  discuss  here 
what  probability  there  was  of  Mithraism  ab- 
sorbing Christianity  instead  of  Christianity 


io6  St.  Augustine 

absorbing  Mithraism1;  but  in  the  fourth 
century  the  Persian  cult  attracted  some  of 
the  most  religious  and  most  cultured  minds 
in  Rome.  The  Christian  prefect  Gracchus 
had  destroyed  one  of  their  temples  on  the 
Vatican  in  376,  but  we  have  inscriptions  re- 
cording sacrifices  in  their  temples  (for  the 
purpose  of  baptism,  the  devotee  standing 
below  in  the  stream  of  blood)  by  some  of 
the  leading  patricians  until  near  the  close 
of  the  century.  The  elaborate  ritual  which 
was  carried  out  in  the  underground  tem- 
ple, the  religious  gloom  alternating  with 
the  brilliance  of  lamps  and  candles,  the  per- 
fume of  flowers  and  incense,  the  symbolic 
theology,  the  dramatic  representation  of  the 
birth  (on  the  25th  of  December),  and  the 
rock-burial  and  resurrection  (in  spring)  of 
the  Saviour,  the  all-pervading  idea  of  re- 
generation, and  the  ascetic  standard  of  life, 
appealed  no  less  strongly  than  Christianity 
to  some  of  the  better  Romans.  Modern 
writers  attribute  to  Mithraism  and  the  wor- 


1  See  Mr.  J.  M.  Robertson's  able  and  conscientious  study,  Christi- 
anity and  Mythology. 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New       107 

ship  of  Isis,  which  had  also  found  favour 
at  Rome,  the  inspiration  of  a  deep  and  up- 
lifting religious  fervour  in  the  last  decades 
of  the  fourth  century.  The  Fathers  were 
greatly  troubled  at  times  both  by  the  moral 
power  and  the  similarity  of  dogma  of  these 
new  cults;  but  in  an  age  when  Plato  was 
believed  to  have  taken  lessons  from  Jere- 
miah, and  the  devil  accommodatingly  acted 
as  an  angel  of  light  sometimes,  the  difficulty 
was  not  insuperable.  However,  Mithraism 
spread  far  and  wide  through  the  Empire. 
If,  indeed,  Constantine  had  chanced  to  stake 
his  fortune  on  Mithra  instead  of  Jesus  in  his 
decisive  battle,  it  is  difficult  to  say  what 
might  have  happened. 

Finally,  we  must  not  forget  the  sect  to 
which  Augustine  himself  still  nominally  be- 
longed. He  has  not  presented  it  to  us  in 
attractive  colours,  it  is  true;  but  there  is  a 
passage  in  Jerome  (Ep.  22,  written  in  384) 
which,  considering  the  fewness  of  the  Mani- 
cheans  at  Rome  owing  to  persecution, 
should  greatly  moderate  our  impression. 
After  a  most  bitter  and  sombre  dissertation 


io8  St.  Augustine 

on  the  morals  of  the  Christian  women  at 
Rome,  he  confesses  that  when  people  meet 
a  woman  of  severe  deportment  and  pallid 
features  (Jerome's  ideal  of  a  woman)  in  the 
streets,  they  at  once  class  her  as  a  Manichee. 
In  this  rivalry  of  religions  Christianity  had 
already  taken  up  a  formidable  position  since 
it  had  been  adopted  at  Court.  In  374  there 
entered  into  the  hierarchy,  at  the  very  point 
where  it  came  into  closest  contact  with  the 
Court,  an  able  statesman  and  devoted  and 
commanding  ecclesiastic.  By  384  the  influ- 
ence of  St.  Ambrose,  so  strangely  under- 
rated by  historians  as  a  rule,1  had  made  a 
deep  impression,  and  paganism  began  its 
rapid  decline.  When  the  superstitious  Con- 
stantine  cast  about  for  a  deity  who  was  not 
already  secured  by  his  adversary  in  the 
struggle  for  empire  in  323,  it  occurred  to 
him  to  try  the  power  of  the  Christian  God, 
for  whom  his  father  had  entertained  some 
respect.  He  won,  and  Christianity  became 
the  religion   of  the  Court.      Constantine, 

'  But  compare  the  emphatic  position  of  De  Broglie  in  his  L'Eglise 
et  V Empire  Remain,  vol.  v. 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New       109 

Constans,  and  Constantius,  whatever  their 
personal  feeling,  and  apart  from  a  few  de- 
crees which  were  not  enforced,  maintained 
a  political  neutrality  in  the  religious  contro- 
versy. Julian  strove  to  eliminate  Christian- 
ity by  all  the  means  which  he  thought 
compatible  with  an  ideal  of  political  equality. 
Jovian  and  Valentinian  maintained  the  policy 
of  Julian's  predecessors.  An  ancient  writer 
has  said  that  the  pagans  regained  the  lost 
ground  under  Valentinian;  we  may  follow 
Ammianus,  who  says  that  "he  remained 
neutral  amidst  the  religious  differences." 
But  with  the  death  of  Valentinian  quite  a 
new  era  began,  an  era  in  which  the  su- 
preme power  is  in  the  hands  of  boys  and 
youths,  and  the  Western  Church  at  length 
receives  the  man  who  can  turn  the  situa- 
tion to  account.  The  year  before  Gratian, 
a  religious  youth  of  sixteen,  mounted  the 
throne,  St.  Ambrose  passed  from  the  bar 
and  the  service  of  the  state  to  the  see  of 
Milan,  where  the  Christian  court  generally 
resided.  Gratian  appointed  Theodosius,  a 
fervent  Christian,  to  the  empire  of  the  East, 


no  St.  Aueustine 


& 


and  there  the  task  of  destroying  the  old 
religion  proceeded  with  vigour.  The  West 
was  ruled  by  Gratian  (a  boy  of  sixteen)  and 
Valentinian  II.  (an  infant  of  four  or  five). 

Both  Gratian  and  Valentinian  were  at 
once  taken  under  the  spiritual  guidance  of 
Ambrose.  The  panegyrics  he  delivered 
over  them  are  inspired  by  a  warm  personal 
affection,  and  he  addresses  them  in  his 
letters  with  a  familiarity  which  is  leagues 
removed  from  the  respect  of  a  Symmachus. 
In  fact,  he  himself  says  in  a  letter  to  Gra- 
tian (Ep.  ii.),  "Thou  hast  gratified  me  by 
restoring  peace  to  the  Church  and  shutting 
the  mouths  of  its  enemies."  When,  there- 
fore, we  find  the  change  of  policy,  we  may 
at  once  recognise  the  hand  of  Ambrose, 
as  well  as  the  suggestion  of  Bishop  Da- 
masus.  In  the  first  year  of  his  reign  a 
decree  was  issued  in  Gratian's  name  which 
breathed  the  tolerant  spirit  of  his  prede- 
cessors. Then,  at  a  date  which  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  determine,  came  his  refusal  to  bear 
the  robe  and  the  title  of  Pontifex  Maxi- 
mus,  which  no  other  Christian  emperor  had 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New       in 

refused.1  But  in  382  the  process  of  destruc- 
tion began  in  earnest.  Gratian  issued  a 
decree  in  which  he  confiscated  to  the 
treasury  the  estates  of  the  temples,  and 
revoked  all  the  privileges  of  the  pontiffs 
and  Vestal  Virgins.  The  Catholic  historian, 
who  is  so  full  of  the  iniquity  of  the  Re- 
formers in  confiscating  the  estates  of  his 
Church,  will  appreciate  the  gravity  of  this 
blow;  and  the  loss  of  civic  and  political 
prestige  was  no  less  serious.  But  it  was 
immediately  followed  by  a  blow  which 
was  even  more  painful  to  the  pagans  of 
Rome.  In  the  senate-house,  on  the  south 
side  of  the  Forum,  was  an  altar  bearing 
a  beautiful  marble  statue  of  Victory,  be- 
fore which  the  senators  swore  allegiance 
to  the  emperor,  and  burned  incense  at 
the  commencement  of  their  deliberations. 

'Gibbon,  vol.  Hi.,  p.  408,  puts  this  immediately  after  Gratian's 
accession,  as  Zosimus  seems  to  intimate,  and  is  corrected  by  his  sage 
commentators,  Milman  and  Smith.  But  Herr  Schultze,  Mr.  Dill, 
and  other  recent  writers,  show  that  there  is  no  solid  reason  for  de- 
parting from  the  natural  interpretation  of  Zosimus.  If  we  must  1/ 
have  our  Gibbon  served  up  with  an  abundance  of  ecclesiastical  sauce, 
it  is  at  least  time  there  was  an  improvement  in  its  quality,  and  such 
"corrections"  as  this,  vilificatory  comments  from  Villemain,  etc., 
were  dropped. 


ii2  St.  Augustine 


£3 


Although  it  was  only  a  shadow  of  power 
that  remained  to  the  senate  in  the  fourth 
century,  the  goddess  who  had  presided 
over  the  counsels  of  the  state  for  four 
centuries  was  instinctively  connected  with 
the  very  fate  of  the  Empire  in  the  minds 
of  the  Conservative  party.  But  the  senate 
had  been  greatly  enlarged,  and  even  some 
of  the  historic  families  had  passed  over  to 
the  new  religion  in  the  train  of  Constant- 
ine.  Whether  it  was  true  or  not1  that,  as 
Ambrose  claimed,  the  majority  of  the  sen- 
ators were  Christians  in  382,  there  was 
certainly  a  large  party  of  nominal  Christians 
in  the  curia.  Bishop  Damasus,  a  clever  and 
ambitious  prelate,  suggested  to  Ambrose 
that  the  altar  weighed  on  the  consciences 
of  the  Christian  senators,  and  Gratian  or- 
dered its  removal.  It  was  in  vain  that  the 
pagans  sent  their  great  orator,  Symmachus, 
to  Milan  to  plead  their  cause;  Symma- 
chus was  ordered  back  to  Rome  without 
being  admitted  to  the  palace.     In  the  fol- 

1 1  will  only  point  out  an  apparently  unnoticed  passage  in  the 
Confessions  (v'ni.,  2),  where  Augustine  says  that  "nearly  the  whole 
nobility  of  Rome  "  was  pagan  in  the  time  of  Valentinian  II. 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New       113 

lowing  year,  383,  Gratian  was  foully  mur- 
dered,—  clearly  the  hand  of  Jupiter, —  and 
the  young  Valentinian  ruled  the  Western 
Empire. 

In  384,  the  year  of  Augustine's  residence 
at  Rome,  a  second  attempt  was  made  to 
obtain  the  restoration  of  the  statue.  The 
political  situation  seemed  to  favour  the 
pagan  cause,  as  the  usurper  Maximus  held 
an  uncertain  sword  over  the  head  of  the 
young  Valentinian.  However,  the  senate 
dare  not  risk  a  second  humiliation.  Sym- 
machus  wrote  an  eloquent  oration,  and 
forwarded  it  to  Milan.  According  to  Am- 
brose's version  of  the  matter,  which  is 
usually  followed  by  the  trustful  hagiogra- 
phers,  the  proceedings  were  very  edifying. 
The  prefect's  paper  was  read  before  the 
consistory  at  Milan.  The  councillors,  mostly 
Arian  Christians,  though  there  were  two 
"barbarian"  generals,  were  unanimously 
in  favour  of  restoring  the  statue.  Then  the 
young  Emperor  (cetat.  14)  boldly  declared 
that  he  would  do  nothing  of  the  kind,  and 
dismissed  the  petition   unanswered.    The 

8 


ii4  St.  Augustine 

truth  is  that  we  must  insert  between  the 
meeting  of  the  consistory  and  the  Emperor's 
decision  the  remarkable  letter  of  St.  Am- 
brose, which  is  the  seventeenth  in  Migne's 
collection.  De  Broglie  thinks  the  senate 
chose  an  occasion  when  Ambrose  was  absent 
on  a  mission  to  Maximus  in  Gaul.  In  any 
case,  the  petition  was  introduced  without 
his  knowledge,  but  — no  one  was  better 
informed  on  the  affairs  of  the  curia  than 
Ambrose  —  he  heard  of  it  and  of  the  atti- 
tude of  the  consistory,  and  at  once  wrote 
a  strong  letter  to  Valentinian,  threatening 
him  with  excommunication  if  he  restored 
the  altar.  "Don't  let  anybody  impose  on 
thy  youth,"  he  says  to  the  boy,  with  de- 
lightful consistency;  in  military  matters  he 
may  consult  military  men,  but  in  religious 
matters  the  decision  must  rest  with  religious 
men.  He  politically  reminds  him  of  the 
views  of  Theodosius,  on  whom  his  throne 
then  really  depended.  Finally,  he  says: 
"  If  it  is  decided  otherwise,  we  bishops  will 
certainly  not  suffer  it  in  silence.  You  may 
go  to  church,  but  you  will  find  no  priest 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New      115 

there,  or  else  one  who  will  repel  you." 
He  demands  a  copy  of  the  petition.  Val- 
entinian  dismissed  the  petition,  and  Am- 
brose published  a  severe  criticism  of  the 
oration  of  Symmachus.  To  say  the  truth, 
that  was  not  difficult,  since  the  tolerance 
and  detachment  from  details  of  these  cul- 
tured monotheistic  pagans  placed  them  at 
a  great  polemical  disadvantage  in  compari- 
son with  the  fervent  exclusivism  of  Am- 
brose and  his  colleagues.  Indeed,  there 
was  a  profound  truth  on  the  side  of  the 
Church,  which  Ambrose  ably  developed  in 
his  reply,  and  which  is,  unhappily,  too 
little  appreciated  by  his  modern  admirers. 
It  was  the  truth  —  obvious  enough  to  us 
(when  there  is  question  of  its  application 
to  past  ages)  —  that  humanity  makes  pro- 
gress. Be  it  God,  or  nature,  or  the  world- 
soul  that  grows  through  the  ages,  that 
inspires  those  views  of  man's  life  and 
destiny  which  we  call  religions,  this  much 
is  certain  — they  improve  from  age  to  age. 
Not  the  conservatism  for  which  Symmachus 
pleaded  so  eloquently,  but  progress  from 


n6  St.  Augustine 

religion  to  religion,  is  the  great  lesson  of 
history.  Christianity  had  the  germs  of 
great  evils  in  it  —  a  glance  down  the  Middle 
Ages  suffices  to  justify  the  phrase  —  but  it 
was  morally  and  intellectually  far  superior 
to  the  religion  which  it  sought  to  replace. 
Symmachus  and  his  colleagues  were  re- 
sisting the  sternest  and  the  happiest  law 
of  this  perplexing  world. 

Ovirore.  tclv  Atos  apfioviav 
Ovoltwv  7rape£ia(TL  fiovkai. 

This  year  384  decisively  marks  the  down- 
fall of  paganism.  Feeble  attempts  were 
made  to  renew  the  petition,  but  they  met 
with  no  success.  Towards  the  close  of  the 
year,  Prastextatus,  the  most  respected  figure 
in  the  conservative  body,  died.  The  Romans 
left  the  theatre  in  tears  when  the  death  was 
announced  in  the  middle  of  a  performance; 
St.  Jerome  hastened  to  assure  his  patrician 
friends  that  Praetextatus  had  gone  "to 
Tartarus/'  Symmachus  retired  from  public 
life  in  despair.  Flavianus  led  a  courageous 
revolt  under  Eugenius  in  392  ;  there  was 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New      117 

another  revival  under  Attalus  in  409.  These 
were  momentary  eddies  in  an  irresistible 
stream.  There  were  devoted  pagans  in 
office  even  after  the  fall,  but  the  process  of 
dissolution  set  in  rapidly  at  Rome  in  384. 
The  decree  of  382  was  only  the  prelude  to 
a  long  series  of  enactments,  mostly  traceable 
to  episcopal  influence,  which  consummated 
the  work.  Pagan  beliefs  were  not  of  the 
kind  that  thrive  by  persecution. 

Augustine  maintains  a  significant  silence 
in  the  Confessions  about  the  great  events  he 
witnessed  at  Rome  in  384.  He  tells  us  two 
things  only:  firstly,  he  was  less  drawn  to 
Christianity  than  ever;  and  secondly,  he 
felt  an  inclination  to  turn  his  back  on  all  the 
churches  and  temples.  We  can  easily  fill 
in  the  eloquent  blank  in  his  experiences,  if 
we  examine  the  situation  of  the  Church  at 
Rome  during  his  residence  there;  and  the 
brief  study  will  help  us  to  understand  to  an 
extent  why,  apart  from  the  struggle  over 
the  new  law,  the  cultured  pagans  of  the 
time  politely  ignore  the  existence  of  Chris- 
tianity in  Rome. 


n8  St.  Augustine 

If  Augustine  was  at  Rome  in  the  month 
of  November,  384,  he  probably  went  with 
"all  Rome1'  to  see  the  funeral  of  Blesilla, 
daughter  of  a  noble  Christian  house.  Her 
remains  were  being  conveyed  with  ex- 
ceptional pomp  to  the  tomb  of  her  ancestors, 
when  her  mother  Paula  gave  way  to  a  wild 
burst  of  grief,  and  was  carried  away  in- 
sensible. Instantly,  a  roar  of  anger  went 
up  from  the  crowd.  "She  is  weeping  for 
her  daughter  who  has  killed  herself  by 
fasting.  Why  are  n't  those  wretched  monks 
driven  from  the  city  ?  Why  are  n't  they 
stoned,  or  flung  into  the  Tiber  ?  "  And  if 
Augustine  had  asked  the  meaning  of  it  all, 
he  would  have  heard  that  a  certain  fanatical 
monk,  of  the  name  of  Eusebius  Hierony- 
mus,  a  savage  Pannonian  or  Dalmatian,  had 
a  school,  in  the  palace  of  Marcella  up  on  the 
Aventine,  where  he  taught  these  suicidal  doc- 
trines to  a  group  of  women.  On  further  in- 
quiry— for  the  name  "monk"  would  be  new 
to  him  —  he  would  learn  this  curious  story. 
When  Athanasius  came  to  Rome  in  341  he 
brought  with  him  two  monks,  who  attracted 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New      119 

as  much  attention  as  Sytnmachus's  Scotch 
dogs.  They  moved  freely  amongst  the 
wealthy  Christians,  telling  the  marvellous 
story  of  the  Egyptian  desert.  There  were 
several  Christian  palaces.  The  great  house 
of  the  Probi  had  loyally  imitated  the  Em- 
peror's example  immediately  after  his  victory, 
and  others  had  followed.  The  monastic 
idea  appealed  to  the  ladies  of  these  families; 
we  do  not,  unfortunately,  find  any  indica- 
tion of  masculine  fervour  in  them  until  late 
in  the  century.  In  the  course  of  time  a 
noble  lady,  Melania,  caused  intense  excite- 
ment by  selling  her  property  and  departing 
for  the  East.  Then  another,  Marcella, 
founded  a  kind  of  spiritual  home  in  her 
palace  on  the  Aventine,  and  a  group  of 
Christian  ladies  —  Asella,  Furia,  Fabiola, 
Marcellina,  Felicitas,  Paula,  Eustochium, 
Blesilla,  Lea,  etc.  —  gathered  there  for  de- 
votions and  the  cultivation  of  a  lofty  ideal 
of  life.  The  palace  of  the  Anicii,  the  heiress 
of  which  had  married  Sextus  P.  Probus, 
was  another  great  Christian  centre.  From 
these  two  palaces  streams  of  gold  flowed 


120  St.  Augustine 

out  over  the  whole  Christian  world.  Much 
of  it  stopped  in  Rome.  Pope  Damasus  flew 
about  in  a  splendid  chariot,  and  gave 
banquets  equal  to  the  Emperor's,  says  Am- 
mianus.  Under  the  arcades  of  St.  Peter's  on 
the  Vatican  liberal  rations  were  served  out  to 
poor  Christians.    The  Church  expanded. 

About  380  there  came  into  the  hands  of 
the  community  on  the  Aventine  a  letter 
from  a  young  monk  of  the  Syrian  desert,  who 
had  studied  in  Rome  and  lived  there— more 
pleasantly  than  piously — some  years  before. 
The  letter  delighted  them  so  much  that 
they  learned  it  by  heart.  The  writer,  St. 
Jerome,  was  urging  a  friend  to  join  him  in 
the  desert.  It  made  contemptuous  refer- 
ence to  "that  fool  Plato,"  and  it  had  one 
passage  of  dramatic  force.  "Though  thy 
little  nephew  cling  to  thy  neck,"  the  young 
saint  cried;  "though  thy  mother  loose  her 
hair  and  rend  her  garments  and  show  thee 
the  breasts  thou  hast  sucked;  though  thy 
father  cast  himself  down  on  the  threshold; 
tread  over  him,  and  go  forth  with  tearless 
eyes  to  the  standard  of  the  cross.     In  these 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New      121 

things  cruelty  alone  is  true  piety."  These 
things  were  committed  to  memory  by  young 
daughters  of  patrician  houses.  In  382  Jerome 
returned  to  Rome,  and  at  once  became  the 
centre  of  the  group  on  the  Aventine.  He 
directed  them  in  the  study  of  Hebrew  and 
the  Scriptures,  and  wrote  them  numbers  of 
violent  and  not  very  refined  letters,  which 
represent  the  Roman  community  in  a  most 
uncomplimentary  light.  But  the  Church 
grew.  Jerome  may  be  regarded  as  the 
father  of  the  finer  art  of  proselytising,  which 
is  still  so  fruitfully  cultivated  at  Rome;  such 
is  the  advantage  of  hourly  intercourse  with 
the  gentler  sex.  Giving  instructions  to 
L^eta  (Ep.  107)  on  the  education  of  her 
child,  at  a  later  date,  he  directs  her  to  use 
her  daughter  in  the  task  of  converting  her 
father,  Albinus,  an  eminent  patrician  and 
pontiff:  "When  she  sees  her  grandfather, 
let  her  climb  his  knees,  and  clasp  her  hands 
about  his  neck,  and  force  him  to  listen  to 
her  prayers." 

Albinus  was  converted,  but  after  a  long 
struggle.   Jerome  favoured  mixed  marriages 


122  St.  Augustine 

(which  Ambrose  opposed),  and  the  claims 
of  Christianity  were  soon  being  pressed  in 
every  palace  with  that  gentle  and  tactful 
zeal  which  the  Church  has  ever  recognised 
in  woman.  But  we  can  well  understand 
the  hesitation  of  cultured  Romans  to  admit 
them.  Neo-Platonic  philosophy  and  Stoic 
morality  had  prepared  the  way  to  a  great 
extent,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  conversion  of 
Augustine  and  others,  but  there  were  in- 
tellectual and  moral  difficulties  in  the  Scrip- 
tures themselves,  and  especially  in  this 
ascetic  development  of  Christian  principles. 
We  can  guess  the  feelings  of  a  Roman 
father  when  he  heard  his  daughter  repeat- 
ing Jerome's  words  to  Heliodorus  (given 
above),  or  his  advice  to  Lasta,  or  his  opin- 
ion that  "adult  virgins"  should  never  take 
a  bath  (Ep.  107),  or  his  contempt  of  Plato, 
or  his  praise  of  the  young  girl  who  sold  her 
jewelry  without  her  parents'  consent  (Ep. 
24),  or  his  sneering  concession  that  "mar- 
riage was  all  very  well  for  those  who  were 
afraid  to  sleep  alone  at  night"  (Ep.  50), 
or  his  declaration  to  the  widow  Furia  that 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New      123 

to  marry  a  second  time  for  the  sake  of 
maintenance  was  "to  prostitute  her  chas- 
tity like  a  harlot,"  or  his  coarse  and  fanati- 
cal insistence  on  the  treasure  of  virginity — 
"  which,"  Jerome  candidly  tells  his  friends, 
"  I  do  not  praise  to  the  sky  because  I  pos- 
sess it,  but  rather  because  1  admire  what 
I  do  not  possess."  At  a  time  when  depopu- 
lation was  one  of  the  greatest  evils  of  the 
Empire,  thoughtful  Romans  were  little  dis- 
posed to  listen  to  the  morbid  praise  of  vir- 
ginity which  was  taken  up  by  every  great 
prelate  in  the  Church;  they  did  not  feel  re- 
assured by  Ambrose's  theory  that  God  would 
increase  the  fertility  of  the  matrons  in  rec- 
ompense, or  Chrysostom's  notion  that  the 
race  would  be  propagated  miraculously.1 
Moreover,  even  senators,  like  Paulinus,  were 
beginning  to  desert  the  service  of  their 
country  under  the  influence  of  this  religion 
of  detachment,  as  Jerome  (Ep.  145)  urged 
even  the  soldiers  to  do. 
On  the  other  hand,  Jerome's  letters  made 

The  Manicheans  used  to  retort  to  the  Christians:  "  The  mule  is  a 

virgin." 


124  St.  Augustine 

it  clear  that,  whilst  these  efforts  were  being 
made  to  instil  heroic  enterprise  into  women, 
the  clergy  were  sinking  deeper  into  corrup- 
tion. Chrysostom  said  of  Christian  Antioch 
that  "  amongst  so  many  thousand  men  there 
were  not  a  hundred  who  would  be  saved, 
and  he  had  a  doubt  about  even  these." 
That  seems  to  have  been  Jerome's  idea  of 
Rome.  Outside  of  his  select  school  on  the 
Aventine,  he  sees  nothing  but  corruption. 
Grossly,  and  in  gross  phrases,  he  repeatedly 
assures  his  lady  pupils  that  the  priests  and 
Christian  women  of  Rome  are  deeply  cor- 
rupt. Pope  Damasus,  almost  his  only 
friend,  he  loyally  defends;  but  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  either  the  sanguinary  strug- 
gle and  intrigue  which  preceded  his  elec- 
tion, or  the  luxurious  life  that  followed  it, 
as  stated  by  Ammianus.  Ozanam  points 
out  that  "not  a  single  great  man  filled  the 
see  of  Rome  in  the  first  four  centuries"; 
Villemain  unkindly  remarks  that  the  Church 
of  Rome  did  not  even  produce  a  heretic.1 

1  In  which   affirmation   Villemain  himself  is   not  above  suspicion. 
For  Helvidius  and  Jovinianus,  Jerome's  great  enemies,  strongly  attacked 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New      125 

And  if  Damasus  was  himself  a  matronarum 
auriscalpius,  as  rival  priests  said,  it  is  hardly 
surprising  that  the  frailty  was  very  conspic- 
uous in  his  clergy.  The  imperial  authorities 
had  to  pass  a  law  (in  370),  which  was  read 
in  the  churches,  making  invalid  any  legacy 
to  the  Christian  clergy.  "  I  don't  complain 
of  the  law,"  says  Jerome  (Ep.  52),  "but  I 
grieve  to  admit  we  have  deserved  it."1  He 
describes  the  priest  or  the  deacon  rising 
early,  dressing  with  care,  and  setting  out, 
his  fingers  glittering  with  rings,  his  hair 
curled,  perfumed,  and  buckled  back,  to 
spend  the  whole  day  in  visiting  wealthy 
Christians.  Elderly  people,  without  chil- 
dren, are  his  chief  spiritual  concern.  In 
other  houses  of  the  rich  he  is  eloquent  with 
admiration  of  some  fine  cushion,  or  other 
object  of  luxury,  until  it  is  given  to  him. 
There  are  graver  matters.     Elderly  widows 

the  virginity  ideal,  the  growing  cult  of  the  Virgin,  the  use  of  pagan 
ritual  and  practices,  and  so  forth.  Jovinian  succeeded  in  persuading 
several  nuns  at  Rome  that  the  married  state  was  quite  as  holy  as  vir- 
ginity, and  more  comfortable. 

1  To  illustrate  the  precariousness  of  human  testimony,  compare  the 
words  of  Ambrose  on  this  point:  "  Although  no  fault  can  be  assigned, 
we  are  opposed  by  law  "  (Resp.  ad  Symmachum). 


126  St.  Augustine 

attach  these  handsome  young  priests  to 
themselves,  at  first  as  spiritual  advisers; 
priests  have  young  women  serving  and  liv- 
ing in  their  homes,  who  are  wives  in  all  but 
the  name  (Ep  125).  Jerome  warns  the 
young  Eustochium  (Ep.  22)  that  most  of  the 
"virgins"  about  her  are  hypocrites  and 
most  of  the  priests  seducers;  many  of  them 
only  seek  ordination,  he  tells  her,  that  they 
may  have  freer  access  to  women.  Jerome 
had,  of  course,  to  pay  for  his  candour.  He 
was  accused  (unjustly)  of  being  more  than 
a  spiritual  director  to  Paula;  Damasus  was 
long  under  a  similar  imputation.  In  a  word, 
we  cannot  affect  to  be  surprised  that  the 
cultured  pagans  of  Rome  ignore  the  exist- 
ence of  Christianity.  They  very  rarely 
show  hostile  feeling,  in  spite  of  their  defeat, 
but  it  is  not  a  serious  religious  phenomenon 
to  them,  as  such.  It  has  been  said  that,  in 
the  condition  of  the  Roman  Empire,  an  ex- 
treme of  asceticism  was  the  proper  and 
effective  ideal  to  set  up.  The  study  of  this 
group  of  cultured  pagans  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  the  hypocrisy  of  the  clergy  on  the 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New      127 

other,  shows  the  utter  futility  of  this  state- 
ment. 

Amongst  the  lower  orders  Christianity 
met  less  resistance,  or  at  least  a  resistance 
which  was  more  easily  turned.  Showy 
processions,  sacred  banquets,  and  sacred 
games,  were  the  only  indispensable  features 
of  the  old  religion.  The  Church  generously 
smoothed  the  path  to  the  new  temples  as 
much  as  possible.  It  not  only  counselled 
the  liberation  of  slaves  and  the  giving  of 
alms,  but  it  acted  with  policy  and  discretion 
in  other  ways.  It  admitted  sacred  banquets 
in  the  churches  until  late  in  the  fourth,  and 
in  some  places  late  in  the  fifth,  century. 
Merchants  set  up  their  stalls  about  the 
church,  a  kind  of  fair  was  instituted,  and 
there  was  heavy  drinking,  dancing,  and 
pantomimic  performances  all  day  long;  as 
long  as  the  supply  of  cakes  and  wine  was 
generous,  the  worshippers  would  not  mind 
whether  the  feast  was  before  an  altar  of 
Bacchus  or  over  the  bones  of  St.  Peter. 
St.  Ambrose  and  St.  Augustine,  as  well  as 
a  number  of  councils,  fought  strenuously 


i28  St.  Augustine 

against  these  fearful  abuses.  The  games 
were  a  source  of  trouble  for  many  years. 
For  the  higher  classes,  it  was  in  the  schools 
that  Jupiter  took  refuge  when  the  temples 
were  closed;  for  the  lower,  it  was  in  the  cir- 
cus and  in  the  amphitheatre.  But  the  glad- 
iatorial contests  were  eventually  suppressed1 
—  though  it  was  by  no  means  so  simple  a 
matter  as  the  current  story  of  Monk  Tele- 
machus  represents  — and  it  was  shown  that 
the  chariot  races,  etc.,  suffered  little  by  the 
omission  of  the  religious  element.  As  to 
the  processions  and  manner  of  worship  in 
general,  the  Church  was  very  accommo- 
dating. The  Saturnalia  became  Christmas 
and  its  succeeding  festivals.  The  purifica- 
tion of  Isis  became  the  purification  of  Mary; 
the  Floralia,  Pentecost;  and  so  on.  Hymns 
to  Cybele  were  hastily  adapted  to  the 
mother  of  Christ;  statues  of  Isis  and  Horus 
became  Mary  and  Jesus.  Stately  proces- 
sions once  more  made  their  way  to  the  tem- 
ples, now  converted  into  Christian  churches. 
Lanciani  says  that  many  pagan  altars  were 

1  And  suppressed  by  the  Church,  be  it  noted. 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New      129 

in  use  in  Roman  churches  until  a  century 
ago;1  that  the  standards  of  weight  were 
transferred  to  the  Christian  churches,  and 
became  the  stones  that  killed  St.  Stephen 
and  other  martyrs;  that  Christian  churches 
of  the  fifth  century  even  copied  the  pagan 
custom  of  having  baths  attached  for  the 
convenience  of  the  worshippers.  People 
hung  up  their  crutches  and  ex-votos  to  the 
saints  as  they  had  done  to  Juno  and  yfecu- 
lapius.  They  had  the  incense,  and  the 
music,  and  the  flowers,  and  candles,  and 
vestments,  and  holy  water,  just  as  in  the 
good  old  times.  "Nothing  distinguishes 
you  from  the  pagans,"  said  Faustus  to  St. 
Augustine,  "except  that  you  hold  separate 
assemblies";  that  was  much  more  true  in 
Italy,  after  the  close  of  the  temples  in  391. 

I  have  thought  it  of  interest  to  describe 
at  some  length  the  ferment  of  religious 
activity  at  Rome  into  which  Augustine  came 
in  384.  That  he  was  untouched  by  the 
temptations  of  Rome  he  is  forced,  some- 
what reluctantly,  to  allow;  he  can  only  say 

1  Pagan  and  Christian  Rome,  chap.  i. 


i3o  St.  Augustine 

that  "my  sin  was  the  more  incurable  as  I 
thought  I  was  committing  no  sin."  He 
was  faithful  to  the  mother  of  his  son,  Adeo- 
datus,  then  a  boy  of  eleven  or  twelve  years. 
But  the  intellectual  effect  of  Augustine's 
short  stay  at  Rome  was  very  great.  He 
began  to  weary  of  his  Sisyphean  task,  and 
look  with  favour  on  the  Academic  teaching. 
"1  had  an  idea  that  the  philosophers  who 
go  by  the  name  of  the  Academics  were 
wiser  than  the  rest,  in  that  they  said  we 
should  doubt  about  everything,  and  the 
pursuit  of  truth  was  hopeless."  We  must 
take  his  statement  with  some  reserve;  he 
never  really  learned  much  about  the  Aca- 
demics (who  were  thorough  agnostics), 
and  never  doubted  the  existence  of  God. 
In  his  De  Militate  Credendi  he  says  that 
when  "the  great  waves  of  his  thoughts  in- 
clined him  to  the  Academic  philosophy,"  he 
was  arrested  by  the  power  of  the  human 
mind;  that  remains  throughout  life  the  chief 
basis  of  his  spiritualism.  He  then  felt  that 
a  divine  authority  must  have  indicated  some 
path  across  the  despairing  plains  of  life  to 


The  Old  Gods  and  the  New      131 

the  golden  peaks  of  his  Ciceronian  dream. 
But  immediately,  he  says,  "the  forest  of 
the  conflicting  sects  "  arose  before  him,  and 
repelled  him  once  more.  He  despaired  of 
finding  the  truth  in  the  Church;  paganism 
he  never  deigns  to  mention.  He  preferred 
to  remain  a  nominal  Manichean,  but  he 
says  emphatically  the  connection  was  no 
more  than  nominal.  Every  path  to  the 
alluring  hills  seems  closed.  He  forgets,  or 
is  ignorant  of,  the  Neo-Platonic  religion  and 
philosophy;  and  he  plunges  sadly  into  the 
commonplace  work  of  life. 


Chapter  VI 

Light  from  the  East 

A  UGUSTINE  had  a  private  school  of 
**  rhetoric  during  the  few  months  of  his 
stay  at  Rome.  He  lived  with  a  Mani- 
chean  friend  at  first,  and  contracted  a 
dangerous  fever  at  his  house.  He  then 
seems  to  have  taken  a  house  of  his  own, 
and  announced  classes  of  rhetoric  for  private 
students.  In  the  Golden  Age  a  private  pro- 
fessor of  rhetoric  sometimes  made  a  large 
fortune  at  Rome.  Remmius  Palaemon  made 
400,000  sesterces  a  year;  whilst  less  gifted 
teachers  starved  in  their  attics.  In  the 
fourth  century  the  teaching  of  rhetoric  was 
chiefly  confined  to  the  public  schools  on 
the  Capitol,  where  thirty  masters  formed  a 
kind  of  university,  to  which  youths  were 
sent  from  all  parts  of  the  Empire.  Vespa- 
sian had  begun  the  practice   of  the  State 

132 


Light  from  the  East  133 

payment  of  teachers,  allowing  rhetoricians 
100,000  sesterces  per  year ;  Alexander  Se- 
verus  had  founded  a  number  of  scholar- 
ships; and  Constantine  had  granted  teachers 
a  number  of  civic  privileges.  The  Capitol 
became  a  busy  centre  of  higher  education, 
and  Valentinian  had  been  obliged  to  place 
some  restraint  on  the  provincial  and  Roman 
youths  in  370.  They  were  to  avoid  evil 
company  and  disorderly  banquets,  and  not  to 
appear  too  often  at  the  circus  and  the  theatre. 
At  twenty  they  were  to  be  sent  back  to 
their  provinces. 

Probably  Augustine  chose  to  teach  in 
private  from  his  preference  for  a  few  quiet 
youths.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  remained 
in  Rome  even  for  a  year.  The  Roman 
youths  were  more  orderly  than  the  Car- 
thaginians, as  he  had  been  told,  but  they 
had  a  more  serious  failing.  They  used  to 
plot  together  to  desert  their  master  and  go 
to  another  school  when  the  pay-day  ap- 
proached. Hence,  when  Augustine  heard 
that  the  city  of  Milan  had  asked  for  a  public 
professor  of  rhetoric,  he  applied  for  the  post 


134  St.  Augustine 

through  his  Manichean  friends,  though,  he 
continues,  with  all  the  ungraciousness  of  a 
convert,  "it  was  in  order  to  get  away  from 
them,  intoxicated  with  vanity  as  they  were, 
chat  I  wanted  to  go."  The  prefect  Sym- 
machus,  who  had  been  asked  to  find  the 
teacher,  made  a  trial  of  Augustine's  ability, 
and  accepted  him.  As  Milan  was  now  the 
second  city  in  Italy,  we  must  assume  that 
he  had  distinguished  talent  for  his  work, 
though  he  seems  never  to  have  had  many 
private  students.  However,  probably  during 
the  autumn  vacation  of  384,  he  was  con- 
veyed to  Milan  by  the  State  service,  and 
found  himself  at  length  in  the  city  of  St. 
Ambrose. 

The  external  life  of  Augustine  during  the 
next  two  years  was  as  uneventful  as  his 
internal  life  was  important  and  interesting, 
We  know  nothing  of  his  teaching  experi- 
ence, save  that  he  included  amongst  his 
pupils  a  number  of  friends  from  Africa. 
Romanianus,  his  friend  and  patron,  sent  his 
two  sons,  Licentius  and  Trigetius,  to  be 
educated  by  him.    Nebridius,  a  Carthaginian 


Light  from  the  East  135 

youth,  also  followed  him  to  Milan,  as  did 
also  his  "  little  slave "  Alypius.  Alypius 
had  studied  law  at  Rome,  and  then  accepted 
a  post  in  the  Government  service  there,  so 
as  to  cling  to  Augustine.  He  now  came  to 
Milan  with  the  intention  of  practising  at  the 
bar.  Romanianus  himself  was  presently 
compelled  to  seek  the  Court  in  the  interest 
of  his  private  affairs,  and  he  joined  the  little 
African  colony.  Augustine  also  attached  a 
number  of  cultured  Milanese  to  himself. 
The  position  of  a  professor  of  rhetoric  in  a 
large  town  was,  as  I  have  explained,  an 
honourable  one,  and  usually  secured  ad- 
mission into  the  most  coveted  circles.  The 
post  was  doubly  important  at  Milan,  as 
Augustine  had  occasionally  to  deliver  the 
panegyric  in  presence  of  the  Emperor.  On 
the  Feast  of  the  Coronation  and  a  few  other 
occasions  the  Emperor  held  a  reception  of 
Court  and  civil  officials,  whilst  a  rhetor  read 
an  elaborate  discourse  in  praise  of  'his 
eternity."  When  one  recollects  the  average 
duration  of  an  emperor's  life  in  the  fourth 
century,  cetemitas  vestra  seems  to  have  a 


136  St.  Augustine 

grim  sort  of  humour,  yet  it  was  one  of  the 
milder  phrases  used  in  these  absurd  speeches. 
Augustine  felt  the  impropriety  of  the  pane- 
gyrics keenly  enough,  but  he  mentions  one 
or  two  occasions  when  he  had  to  exercise 
his  art  before  the  boy  Emperor  and  his 
mother.  We  have  neither  of  these  pane- 
gyrics; but  he  hints  (De  Or  dine)  that  he  had 
the  disadvantage  of  a  slight  African  accent, 
and  his  Latin  was  certainly  greatly  inferior  to 
that  of  such  rhetoricians  as  Symmachus. 

But  it  is  Augustine's  inner  growth  that 
now  claims  our  whole  attention.  We  left 
him  at  Rome  rather  weary  of  the  task  of 
scaling  the  empyrean.  Perplexed  in  thought 
and  sore  at  heart,  he  was  drawing  back  from 
the  paths  that  seemed  to  offer  an  illusory 
guidance  to  the  eternal  hills.  He  was  turn- 
ing again  to  the  glad  cities  that  men  had 
built  on  the  broad  plain  of  life.  Honour, 
repute,  a  wealthy  marriage,  were  ideas  that 
began  once  more  to  grow  large  on  the  screen 
of  his  consciousness.  Yet  amidst  the  enerva- 
tion and  confusion  which  resulted  from  his 
doubt  and  despondency,  there  were  two 


Light  from  the  East  137 

truths  that  never  ceased  to  cast  an  absorbing 
image  on  his  mind:  a  conviction  that  the 
human  mind  was  a  thing  apart  in  the  uni- 
verse, and  that  a  Divine  Mind  embraced  the 
whole  in  an  all-seeing  vision.  How  recon- 
cile this  incarnate  perversity  of  a  world  with 
the  being  of  God  without  the  aid  of  the 
Manichean  spirit  of  evil?  Manicheism  he 
had  tried,  and  found  too  much  disfigured 
with  errors.  It  could  not  be  the  divine 
guide  he  sought;  there  were  human  phi- 
losophers who  "  had  said  things  which  were 
more  probable."  The  Christian  Scriptures 
he  had  read,  and,  fancying  they  were  to  be 
taken  at  the  letter,  had  flung  contemptu- 
ously aside.  The  teaching  of  the  Platonic 
school  was  all  but  unknown  to  him  when 
he  decided  that  all  human  guidance  was 
unavailing,  and  there  must  be  a  divine 
message  obscured  somewhere  in  "  the  forest 
of  sects."  Clearly,  what  he  needed  was,  in 
the  first  place,  a  suggestion  that  the  Old  Tes- 
tament must  not  be  taken  at  the  letter;  and, 
in  the  second  place,  a  philosophic  introduc- 
tion to  the  New  Testament  ideas  of  a  spiritual 


138  St.  Augustine 

God,  the  Trinity,  and  the  Incarnation.  In 
his  work  De  Militate  Credendi  he  indicates 
that  he  was  in  a  frame  of  mind  in  which  any 
masterful  teacher  could  bear  him  along.  His 
first  such  teacher  was  St.  Ambrose,  who  led 
him  half-way  to  the  Christian  Church. 

It  was  probably  well  for  him  that  he 
never  came  into  intimate  contact  with  the 
Bishop  of  Milan.  Augustine  went  to  hear 
him  frequently  at  the  chief  basilica.  He 
sought  rhetoric,  not  doctrine;  and,  although 
Ambrose  was  not  an  eloquent  or  an  ornate 
speaker,  there  was  an  unaccustomed  sin- 
cerity and  a  winning  earnestness  in  his 
discourses.  In  spite  of  his  prejudice  Au- 
gustine followed  his  thoughts,  and  this 
quickly  led  to  an  important  modification  of 
his  position.  He  learned  that  the  Christian 
Scriptures  were  not  to  be  interpreted  liter- 
ally. The  stories  of  Genesis,  at  which  he 
had  laughed,  appeared  far  less  human  in  the 
light  of  Ambrose's  figurative  interpretation. 
All  the  Manichean  objections  to  the  Old 
Testament  fell  to  the  ground.  The  Christian 
gospel  obtained  a  fresh  interest  in  his  es- 


Light  from  the  East  139 

teem.  He  thought  of  consulting  Ambrose 
about  the  remaining  difficulties  —  the  power 
of  evil,  the  spiritual,  the  Incarnation,  and 
the  rest.  I  say  it  was  well  that  he  found 
this  impossible.  Ambrose  was  a  most  un- 
suitable counsellor  for  such  a  situation,  as 
his  letters  clearly  show.  In  his  thirty-fifth 
letter  (Migne  edition),  for  instance,  he  tells 
some  one  who  has  consulted  him  about 
similar  questions  concerning  the  soul  to 
leave  these  "trifles  of  the  philosophers " 
alone  and  read  —  the  book  of  Esdras!  In 
his  twenty-eighth  letter,  answering  one 
who  is  astonished  at  the  elevation  of  the 
ideas  of  Pythagoras  the  heathen,  he  says 
there  is  no  cause  for  astonishment, 
"since  it  is  generally  believed  Pythagoras 
was  of  Jewish  extraction."  In  a  work  he 
wrote  against  the  Platonists  he  contended 
that  Plato  learned  his  best  ideas  from  Jere- 
miah. It  is  hardly  likely  that  Ambrose 
would  have  found  Augustine  quite  prepared 
for  those  ideas  in  385. 

He  had  no  opportunity  for  private  conver- 
sation with  the  bishop  about  his  difficulties. 


Ho  St.  Augustine 

A  bishop  had  the  duties  of  a  magistrate 
to  discharge  at  that  time,  as  well  as  his 
more  properly  episcopal  functions.  The 
Bishop  of  Milan  had  other  and  more  ardu- 
ous duties.  He  was  a  politician  and  a 
statesman.  In  the  preceding  year  he  had 
successfully  discharged  a  political  mission  to 
the  usurper  Maximus.  In  385  he  began  his 
famous  struggle  with  Justina,  the  Emperor's 
mother.  Justina  was  an  Arian,  and  so  were 
most  of  the  councillors.  There  were  few 
other  Arians  in  Milan,  but  Justina  demanded 
one  of  the  basilicas  of  the  city  for  the  pur- 
pose of  Arian  worship,  and  there  was  a 
long  and  bitter  struggle.  The  details  of  the 
conflict  do  not  concern  us,  but  it  had  prob- 
ably already  commenced  when  Augustine 
was  anxious  to  consult  Ambrose.  He  used 
to  go  frequently  to  the  Bishop's  house, 
where  no  servant  guarded  the  ever  open 
door,  and  stand  in  silence  for  some  time 
watching  Ambrose  reading  or  praying.  He 
had  not  courage  to  ask  an  hour  of  his 
crowded  life.  Otherwise,  he  was  on  friendly 
terms  with  Ambrose.     His  mother,  Monica, 


Light  from  the  East  141 

had  joined  him  at  Milan,  and  had  won  the 
Bishop's  admiration.  Augustine  tells  a  story 
of  her  going  to  the  church,  in  the  African 
fashion,  with  a  basket  of  wine  and  cakes 
for  the  love-feasts  of  the  martyrs.  Ambrose 
had  suppressed  the  custom  on  account  of 
the  drunkenness  and  disorderly  scenes  it 
gave  rise  to.  Monica  was,  therefore,  stopped 
at  the  door,  and  turned  away,  but  she  sub- 
mitted at  once  when  the  matter  was  ex- 
plained. Monica  was  one  of  the  more  sober 
Christians  who  regarded  the  ceremony  in  a 
purely  religious  light.  One  cup  of  wine, 
well  watered,  had  to  serve  for  the  whole 
of  the  martyrs.  She  merely  walked  around, 
placing  it  on  each  tomb,  and  taking  a  rever- 
ential sip.  Then  she  returned,  leaving  the 
wine  and  cakes,  it  seems,  for  the  general 
festivity.  Ambrose  often  congratulated  Au- 
gustine on  his  mother. 

Thus  the  service  of  St.  Ambrose  in  the 
conversion  of  Augustine  was  restricted  to  a 
removal  of  his  difficulties  about  the  Old 
Testament.  But  the  service  was  a  very  im- 
portant one.    As  a  result  of  it,  Augustine 


142  St.  Augustine 

now  took  up  the  Scriptures  in  a  new  spirit, 
and  began  at  length  to  find  a  profound  wis- 
dom in  the  stories  of  Genesis.  His  attitude 
towards  Christianity  was  greatly  changed. 
As  he  so  happily  expresses  it,  he  now  felt 
that  Christianity  was  not  defeated,  yet  not 
a  victor;  not  defeated  by  Manichean  criti- 
cism, yet  not  victorious  over  his  besetting 
difficulties  about  evil  and  spirituality.  Au- 
gustine was  never  exacting  in  the  matter  of 
evidence.  He  had  inherited  a  rare  and  en- 
viable gift  from  his  mother.  As  a  pious 
Catholic  she  could  not  consult  the  astrolo- 
gers, but  she  had  a  direct  communication 
with  the  higher  powers  in  her  dreams. 
"She  used  to  say  that  she  could  distin- 
guish by  a  kind  of  taste  which  she  could 
not  describe,  between  Thy  revelation  and 
the  images  of  her  dreaming  imagination." 
So  with  Augustine.  It  was  by  a  kind  of 
subtle  sense,  that  dispensed  with  the  labour 
of  seeking  evidences  and  historical  guaran- 
tees, that  he  tested  alleged  revelations.  He 
was  half  persuaded  that  the  Scripture  an- 
swered this  test.    "  So  I  resolved,"  he  says, 


Light  from  the  East  143 

"to  remain  a  catechumen  in  the  Catholic 
Church,  commended  to  me  by  my  parents, 
until  some  steady  light  should  shine  forth 
to  direct  my  course." 

During  the  period  of  waiting  for  the  dawn 
of  this  new  light,  Augustine's  character  was 
slowly  developing  in  the  direction  in  which 
his  studies  were  leading.  He  had  for  some 
time  discussed  the  question  of  marriage 
with  his  friends.  No  one  who  reads  the 
Confessions  can  fail  to  notice  how  purely 
formal  and  calculating  are  the  thoughts  of 
Augustine  at  this  period.  Had  he  written 
at  the  time  instead  of  fourteen  years  after- 
wards, no  doubt  he  would  have  expressed 
some  sense  of,  it  not  the  moral,  at  least  the 
emotional  aspect  of  the  proposal.  His  un- 
feeling phrases  jar  on  the  mind  of  those  who 
would  admire  him.  He  has  no  sense  what- 
ever of  obligation  to  the  woman  who  has 
shared  his  life  for  fourteen  years.  Evi- 
dently, she  belonged  to  a  much  lower  con- 
dition of  life  than  his  own,  and  it  would 
have  been  a  miracle  ot  self-sacrifice  in  the 
Roman  world  to  have  married  her.  But  it  is 


144  St.  Augustine 

impossible  to  resist  a  feeling  of  resentment 
at  Augustine's  utter  failure  to  see  the  injus- 
tice of  such  conventions.  He  who  saw  the 
whole  world  as  one  dark  cemetery  when 
his  friend  died,  and  who  shows  a  sense  of 
the  honour  of  fidelity  in  his  love,  cannot 
have  been  without  affection  for  her.  In- 
deed, he  admits,  when  he  has  tamely  suf- 
fered her  to  be  ''torn  from  his  side,"  that 
there  is  "a  raw  and  bloody  wound  in  his 
heart  where  she  had  lain."  But  he  describes 
the  steps  which  led  to  the  separation  in  a 
quite  heartless  spirit.  He  wanted  a  wealthy 
wife,  whose  means  would  help  to  support 
the  house.  A  discussion  of  the  question 
with  Alypius  had  an  amusing  result. 
Alypius  was  opposed  to  matrimony.  He 
had  tasted  pleasure  occasionally  in  the  ear- 
lier years,  and  thought  it  was  not  worth 
the  burdens  and  disadvantages  which  mar- 
riage would  involve.  Augustine  assured 
him  that  his  occasional  pleasure  was  not  to 
be  compared  with  the  joy  of  a  constant  at- 
tachment. The  end  of  the  discussion  was 
that  Alypius  resolved  to  marry  himself,  so 


Light  from  the  East  145 

strong  a  "  curiosity  "  was  excited  in  him  by 
the  warmth  with  which  Augustine  de- 
scribed the  sacrifice. 

Monica,  naturally,  encouraged  Augus- 
tine's proposal.  She  saw  how  close  he 
had  approached  to  the  Church,  and  thought 
his  irregular  attachment  was  the  only  hin- 
drance to  baptism.  She  had  recourse  — 
"at  my  request,"  candidly  says  Augustine 
—  to  her  prophetic  dream-faculty;  "but 
Thou  wouldst  not  reveal  anything  to  her 
in  her  dreams  about  my  future  marriage.  " 
Monica  was  obliged  to  cast  about  like  less 
gifted  mothers,  and  she  at  length  discov- 
ered a  desirable  party  —  a  girl  of  ten  years 
(Augustine  was  now  thirty-two)  —  who 
seems  to  have  had  a  respectable  dowry. 
Augustine  was  willing  to  wait  two  years; 
in  fact,  it  was  by  no  means  an  uncommon 
occurrence  to  espouse  a  girl  of  ten  when 
the  dowry  was  attractive.  Then  came  the 
discharge  of  the  mother  of  Adeodatus.  The 
Roman  world  regarded  such  an  action  as 
natural  and  commendable;  in  the  Enchar- 
isticos^  of   Paulinus  of    Pella  an  entirely 


146  St.  Augustine 

similar  experience  is  described  with  equal 
callousness.  The  Christian  world  has  been 
so  overwhelmed  with  the  heinousness  of 
the  attachment  itself  that  this  poor  circum- 
stance of  human  grief  has  passed  almost 
unobserved.  Yet  it  is  hard  to  forgive  Au- 
gustine the  unfeeling  brevity  with  which  — 
save  for  one  phrase —  he  dismisses  the  poor 
unknown  from  the  story  of  his  life.  What 
pages  would  not  Rousseau  have  written  on 
such  an  episode!  But  Rousseau  addressed 
his  Confessions  to  humanity;  Augustine  to 
God.  Just  as  we  refuse  to  see  so  many  of 
the  tears  that  Jean  Jacques  is  supposed  to 
shed,  so  we  may  grant  some  to  Augustine 
which  he  has  forgotten  in  the  splendour  of 
the  Divine  Presence.  Adeodatus  remained 
with  his  father;  his  mother  returned  to 
Africa.  It  is  evident  that  Monica  was  the 
chief  agent  in  this,  yet  it  is  just  as  evident 
that  Augustine  had  contemplated  it  for  some 
time.1    To  complete  this  sorry  page  of  Au- 

1  The  hagiographer  generally  says  that  the  poor  woman  was  con- 
verted and  entered  a  nunnery,  or  at  all  events  took  a  vow  of  chastity, 
in  Africa.  Augustine  says:  "  She  returned  to  Africa,  vowing  to  Thee 
she  would  know  no  man  again."     It  seems  to  me  the  usual  interpre- 


Light  from  the  East  147 

gustine's  life,  we  have  to  add  that  his  com- 
panion had  not  been  gone  long  before  he 
"procured  another"  to  minister  to  his  un- 
controllable passion  during  the  two  years 
of  waiting. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Augustine  dis- 
cussed with  his  friends  the  idea  of  forming 
a  philosophic  community.  There  was  no- 
thing particularly  ascetic  about  the  proposal, 
but  quite  a  small  colony  of  Afro-Romans 
had  met  at  Milan,  as  I  have  explained. 
Alypius  was  seeking  legal  practice  there. 
Nebridius  was  teaching  in  the  school  of  a 
friend.  Romanianus  was  furthering  his  in- 
terests at  Court.  Altogether  it  was  thought 
that  ten  would  be  willing  to  club  their  re- 
sources and  maintain  a  common  household. 
Romanianus  was  a  very  wealthy  man,  and 
even  Alypius  and  Nebridius  seem  to  have 
been  in  better  circumstances  than  Augus- 
tine.    But  the  rhetorician  was  the  centre, 

tation  is  strained.      Vovens  tibi  may  very  well   mean    that  "she 
vowed  and  swore  [every  African,  including  Augustine,  swore  habitu- 
ally] she  would  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  men  " ;  either  in  anger 
or  in  her  great  love  for  Augustine.     We  know  absolutely  nothing  of 
her  beyond  what  I  have  stated. 


148  St.  Augustine 

the  most  commanding  personality  of  the 
group.  He  had  led  them  all  (except  the 
shrewd  Nebridius)  into  Manicheism,  and 
he  was  to  lead  them  all  into  Christianity. 
They  proposed  to  have  a  common  purse, 
and  appoint  two  of  their  number  each  year 
to  take  charge  of  the  business  of  the  house- 
hold, leaving  the  majority  free  to  pursue 
their  studies,  and  discourse  uninterruptedly 
of  learning  and  philosophy.  The  proposal 
was  wrecked  on  a  familiar  rock.  As  soon 
as  the  question  of  women  was  raised,  the 
plan  fell  to  pieces.  Clearly,  Augustine  and 
his  friends  were  poorly  acquainted  with  the 
complexion  and  the  success  of  Epicurus's 
famous  community  at  Athens. 

It  seems  likely,  however,  that  the  Epi- 
curean community  had  inspired  the  idea. 
Shortly  after  telling  the  failure  of  their  pro- 
ject, Augustine  declares  that  he  was  greatly 
inclined  towards  Epicureanism.  Unfortun- 
ately, he  has  the  very  common  misappre- 
hension of  Epicurean  teaching.  It  is  not  a 
flattering  picture  that  Augustine  offers  us  of 
himself,  standing  impatiently  on  the  brink 


Light  from  the  East  149 

of  the  flood  of  bodily  pleasure,  and  only 
withheld  from  a  plunge  into  its  lowest 
depths  by  the  dread  of  death  and  what 
may  lie  beyond  it.  Whether  or  no  this  is 
an  overdrawn  picture  of  his  own  position, 
it  certainly  does  injustice  to  Epicurus. 
Throughout  his  works  Augustine  insists 
that  Epicurus  found  man's  true  aim  in 
"bodily  pleasure,"  and  opposes  this  to  the 
"virtue"  which  was  the  summum  bonum 
of  the  Stoics.  In  a  carefully  prepared  ser- 
mon, which  he  delivered  at  Carthage  (Sermo 
150),  he  even  speaks  of  "the  uncleanness 
of  the  Epicureans,"  and  will  have  it  that 
they  filled  their  lives  with  sensual  pleasure 
because  they  did  not  believe  in  a  future 
state.  That  is  an  error  which  will  probably 
live  as  long  as  Stoicism  or  the  Church. 
Epicurus  said  that  he  saw  no  sound  reason 
for  admitting  a  future  state,  that  the  soul 
was  but  a  finer  texture  of  matter,  and  that 
this  absence  of  anxiety  about  a  life  beyond 
would  contribute  to  the  tranquillity  of  the 
present  life.  Not  bodily  pleasure,  but  a  full 
and  rounded  happiness,  was  his  ideal.     He 


150  St.  Augustine 

led  "an  unusually  moderate  and  contented 
life,"  "a  model  life,"  says  Zeller,  neither  in 
isolation  nor  in  indulgence  of  sense,  but  in 
a  sober  and  affectionate  comradeship.  "  We 
cannot  live  pleasantly  [happily],"  he  used 
to  say,  "without  living  wisely  and  nobly 
and  righteously."  Seeing  no  convincing 
proof  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  he  ad- 
vised men,  not  to  eat  and  drink  and  make 
merry,  but  to  ponder  well  all  the  gifts  that 
nature  bestows  or  suggests,  and  follow 
those  that  promise  a  happy  and  tranquil 
career.  That  was  the  sum  and  substance 
of  the  "uncleanness  of  the  Epicureans." 

There  is  this  truth  in  Augustine's  ill-in- 
formed statement,  that  he  still  wavered  be- 
tween the  facile  pleasures  of  the  plains  of 
life  and  the  frail  charm  of  the  arduous  hills 
beyond.  Time  after  time  his  idealist  ardour 
faded,  and  the  thoughts  of  wedded  joy, 
and  the  honour  of  men,  and  the  soft  luxury 
of  wealth,  invaded  his  soul.  We  have  just 
seen  how  weak  a  purpose  he  opposed  to 
the  passion  of  love;  later  we  shall  hear  him 
complain  of  a  leaning  towards  good  living 


Light  from  the  East  151 

(Confessions,  x.,  31).  Yet  we  have  seen 
good  reason  to  think  he  was  far  from  being 
what  we  should  call  a  sensual  man.  We 
must  understand  the  sharp  antithesis  of 
ideals  in  his  day.  Now  we  are  all  Epi- 
cureans, only  some  of  us  trust  to  extend 
our  Epicureanism  into  a  coming  life  as  well 
as  this.  In  the  early  ages  of  the  Christian 
era  a  serious  man  held  that  Epicureanism, 
even  justly  and  soberly  conceived,  was 
incompatible  with  a  full  acceptance  of  the 
teaching  of  Christ.  And  Augustine's  Cice- 
ronian vision  was  rapidly  melting  into  a 
Pauline  prospect.  The  hills  beyond  were 
the  eternal  hills  of  the  Scriptures,  he  was 
fast  becoming  convinced.  That  is  why  his 
purpose  wavered  in  proportion  as  he  felt 
that  he  approached  the  path  he  had  sought 
so  long.  A  profound  moral  struggle  was 
preparing.  He  grasped  at]  every  excuse  for 
deferring  the  last  investigation.  "When 
shall  we  seek  the  truth?  Ambrose  has  not 
time:  he  has  not  time  to  read.  Where  shall 
we  get  the  books  ?  ...  In  the  forenoon 
the    pupils  occupy   us :    what  do  we   do 


I  52 


St.  Augustine 


afterwards?  Why  not  this?  But  when  shall 
we  salute  the  friends  whose  patronage  we 
need?  When  shall  we  prepare  our  lessons? 
When  shall  we  recreate  ourselves,  relaxing 
the  mind  from  care!"  The  eternal  story. 
But  again  the  clouds  darken  the  cities  on 
the  plain,  and  the  hilltops  shine  forth.  One 
day  he  sees  a  drunken  beggar  in  the  street, 
who  has  purchased  the  happiness  of  an  em- 
peror for  a  few  small  coins.  It  casts  a  shade 
on  his  ambition.  This  man  is  happier  than 
he,  yet  has  bought  his  joy  so  cheaply.  He 
turns  to  his  books,  and  the  problem  of  evil 
absorbs  his  fruitless  hours,  and  the  idea  of 
a  spiritual  God,  which  he  has  heard  in  the 
sermons  of  Ambrose  and  the  conversation 
of  a  Platonist  friend,  Manlius  Theodorus, 
the  future  consul,  mocks  the  low  flight  of  his 
imagination.  "  These  things  I  turned  again 
and  again  in  my  wretched  breast,  weighed 
down  with  crushing  anxiety  from  my  fear  of 
death  and  my  hopeless  quest  of  truth.  How 
far  from  the  tranquillity  of  Epicurus! 

In  this  condition  we  find  him  at  the  be- 
ginning of  386,  when  the  last  step  in  his 


Light  from  the  East  153 

progress  towards  the  Church  was  taken. 
A  friend  —  with  his  usual  gracelessness  he 
says,  "  a  certain  man  who  was  inflated  with 
a  stupendous  conceit"  —  sent  him  "  certain 
books  of  the  Platonists,  recently  translated 
into  Latin  from  the  Greek."  The  translator 
was  Victorinus,  a  distinguished  Roman 
rhetorician,  who  afterwards  became  a  Chris- 
tian. Augustine  nowhere  indicates  the  names 
of  the  works  which  "lit  up  an  incredi- 
ble "  flame  within  him,  but  recent  research1 
has  identified  them  with  some  confidence. 
It  was  almost  certainly  the  works  of  Alex- 
andrian Neo-Platonists,  not  of  Platonists, 
that  he  read  at  this  time.  Augustine's  hist- 
ory of  philosophy  is  very  defective.  Nouris- 
son,  writing  under  the  eye  of  a  bench  of 
bishops,  cannot  refrain  from  calling  Augus- 
tine's erudition  "undigested,"  "superficial," 
"mediocre  and  very  imperfect";  "cen'est 
point  un  savant,"  he  says  at  length.  Even 
Ellies  Dupin  says  "he  had  more  ability 
than  erudition."    At  all  events,  Augustine 

1  See  the  chief  points  in  Nourisson's  Philosophic  de  Saint  Augustin 
and  Grandgeorge's  Saint  Augustin. 


154  St.  Augustine 

is  always  confounding  Platonists,  Neo-Pla- 
tonists,  and  Academics  — three  widely  dif- 
ferent schools  —  and  fancies  Aristotle  was  a 
faithful  follower  of  Plato.  For  many  years  he 
accepted  Ambrose's  theory  that  "  Jeremiah  " 
had  given  Plato  his  "golden  thoughts." 
Confined  as  he  was  to  Latin  literature,  we 
cannot  expect  to  find  in  him  a  close  ac- 
quaintance with  Greek  thinkers.  It  is 
generally  thought  he  read  a  translation  of 
the  Timceus;  M.  Saisset  thinks  he  was  ac- 
quainted with  the  Phcedo,  Phcedrus,  Repub- 
lic, and  Gorgias;  and  M.  Nourisson  would 
add  the  Banquet.  Certainly  he  builds 
throughout  life  on  some  of  Plato's  most  dis- 
tinctive notions.  The  theory  of  ideas,  and 
the  antithesis  of  the  world  of  sense  and  the 
world  of  mind,  are  basic  thoughts  in  his 
system.  From  Aristotle  he  has  borrowed 
those  ideas  of  time  and  eternity  which  are 
so  familiar  to  readers  of  the  Confessions  and 
the  City  of  God,  as  well  as  his  definition  of 
the  soul  and  his  idea  of  matter  and  form. 

But  it  is  very  difficult  to  prove  that  he 
read  any  works  of  either  Plato  or  Aristotle, 


Light  from  the  East  155 

except  perhaps  the  Timceus,  which  was 
much  read  in  his  day,  and  Aristotle's  Cate- 
gories and  Dialectics.  The  Alexandrian 
philosophers  affected  to  select  the  sounder 
and  more  striking  thoughts  from  Pytha- 
goras, Plato,  Aristotle,  and  the  rest,  and 
Augustine  would  find  all  he  has  learned  in 
them.  There  are  few  philosophic  ideas  in 
his  works  which  cannot  be  found  in  Por- 
phyry or  Plotinus.  Nourisson  "cannot 
find  a  single  original  idea  in  his  philosophy  " 
at  the  close  of  his  careful  analysis;1  and  the 
tabulated  comparison  of  Grandgeorge  seems 
to  trace  every  important  thought  to  the 
Alexandrians.  In  the  City  of  God,  indeed, 
Augustine  calls  Plotinus,  Jamblichus,  and 
Porphyry,  "the  Platonists."  It  seems  quite 
clear  that  it  was  some  Neo-Platonic  works 
which  fell  into  his  hands  in  386;  and  it  is 
probable  that  the  chief  of  these  was  a  trans- 
lation of  the  Enneads  of  Plotinus.  There, 
at  all  events,  we  find  the  ideas  which  im- 
mediately bridged  over  the  last  mental  gulf 
that  separated  Augustine  from  Christianity. 

1  Op.  cit.,  ii.,  276. 


156  St.  Augustine 

Augustine's  most  stubborn  difficulty 
throughout  had  been  the  power  of  evil. 
The  chief  fascination  of  the  Manichean  sys- 
tem had  been  that  it  afforded  a  plausible 
explanation  of  this  central  fact  of  life,  this 
hideous  corruption,  spreading  like  a  cancer- 
ous growth  over  the  fair  frame  of  the  world, 
that  has  absorbed  every  sincere  thinker 
from  Buddha  and  Zoroaster  to  Goethe  and 
Schopenhauer.  The  one  sacred  and  abiding 
principle  in  Augustine's  mind  was  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  and  hitherto  he  had  utterly 
failed  to  reconcile  it  with  the  plain  features 
of  life.  Plotinus  supplied  him  with  a  mag- 
ical formula  that  dissipated  his  anxiety  like 
a  disease  of  the  overburdened  mind.  For 
the  rest  of  his  days  Augustine  found  the 
presence  of  evil  to  be  one  of  the  most  natu- 
ral and  harmonious  qualities  of  creation. 
The  suggestion  of  Plotinus  had  the  ideal 
simplicity  which  often  marks  great  thoughts 
—  or  great  phrases.  Evil  is  not  an  entity 
at  all.  It  is  a  failure  of  things  to  reach  per- 
fection. Why  do  you  seek  an  efficient 
cause  of  a  non-entity  ?    Or  on  what  ground 


Light  from  the  East  157 

do  you  demand  that  God  should  create  a 
perfect  world  — if  that  were  possible  — or 
none  at  all  ?  Nay,  would  the  world  be  per- 
fect without  the  wholesome  stimulus  of 
pain  ?  And  so  the  great  magician  charmed 
away  the  sorrow  and  ugliness  of  life  with 
his  phrases,  and  inspired  the  optimism 
which  from  that  day  resented  as  blasphemy 
all  talk  of  reconciliation  with  our  Maker  for 
his  misdeeds.  But  Augustine  had  already 
gathered  from  the  Scriptures  and  from  Am- 
brose's sermons  that  his  idea  of  God  was 
wholly  wrong.  The  Manichean  system  was 
frankly  materialistic.  There  were  finer  and 
coarser  textures  of  matter,  but  the  whole  of 
existence  was  like  what  our  senses  per- 
ceive. Dimly  and  with  much  perplexity 
Augustine  had  realised  that  the  Christians 
placed  their  God  in  a  higher  world.  He 
was  incorporeal,  like  a  mathematical  quan- 
tity, yet  real  and  substantial.  His  imagina- 
tion had  fallen  back  helplessly  to  earth 
whenever  it  had  tried  to  picture  this  spirit- 
God.  Plotinus  once  more,  with  a  single 
flash  of  thought,  illumined  a  path  for  him 


158  St.  Augustine 


* 


which  he  had  never  seen  before.  Is  truth 
corporeal  ?  Is  it  not  real  ?  He  was  led  into 
the  entrancing  idea-world  of  Plato  and  the 
Pythagorean  science  of  numbers.  At  a 
bound  he  was  away  from  the  solid  earth  of 
Epicurus  and  Mani,  and  found  himself  in 
the  land  of  the  eternal  and  incorruptible 
spirit.  Truth  and  beauty  and  goodness, 
the  most  thrilling  realities  of  life,  lived  in  an 
imperishable  world;  they  had  an  unchang- 
ing reality  in  themselves,  sublimely  inde- 
pendent of  the  faint  and  broken  reflection 
of  them  that  ennobles  this  transitory  uni- 
verse. Then,  all  is  not  corporeal.  And  if 
truth  is  incorporeal,  must  not  its  infinite 
source  be  incorporeal,  eternal,  immutable, 
and  all-pervading,  like  itself?  And  could 
the  mind  perceive  it  if  it  also  were  not 
spiritual  ? 

So,  one  by  one,  the  bonds  of  Manichean 
teaching  fell  from  him,  and  he  found  him- 
self thinking  the  thoughts  of  the  Gospels. 
Whether  it  be  that  "Plato  wrote  a  human 
preface  to  the  Gospels,"  as  De  Maistre  said, 
or  that  the  evangelists  wrote  a  human  ap- 


Light  from  the  East  159 

pendix  to  Plato,  as  others  think,  it  is  hardly 
our  duty  to  inquire  here.  But  we  may  be 
permitted  to  express  less  astonishment  than 
Augustine  felt  when  he  read,  point  by  point, 
in  the  Alexandrian  philosophy,  what  he  al- 
ready knew  to  exist  in  Alexandrian  theo- 
logy. Plato's  doctrine  of  the  Logos  (bor- 
rowed from  Moses,  according  to  St.  Justin) 
had,  as  it  was  presented  by  Plotinus,  a 
singular  resemblance  to  that  of  St.  John. 
Plato's  Trinity,  as  described  by  Plotinus, 
was  sufficiently  rational  to  recommend  itself, 
and  sufficiently  Alexandrian  to  recommend 
the  Nicene  Creed.  Under  the  seductive 
guidance  of  a  philosopher,  who  appealed  to 
his  reason,  he  found  himself  accepting  doc- 
trines for  which  a  blind  submission  had 
been  demanded.  The  Platonic  and  Neo- 
Platonic  ideas  were,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, brought  before  him  by  Christians,  in 
a  Christian  atmosphere.  He  saw  them 
only  as  stepping-stones  across  the  river  that 
divided  his  mind  from  the  Church.  He 
now  found  himself,  intellectually,  on  the 
very  threshold  of  Christian  theology.     He 


160  St.  Augustine 

had  gathered  the  ideas  which  he  afterwards 
develops  with  so  much  ingenuity  in  his 
philosophic  works.1  He  remains  a  Platon- 
ist  throughout  life.  His  early  works  are  full 
of  generous  admiration  for  those  who  saved 
him  from  what  he  regarded  as  the  bondage 
of  materialism.  But  mark  the  price  of  pro- 
gress in  sanctity.  When  he  comes  to  write 
his  Confessions  (about  400),  he  speaks  only 
of  their  "presumption"  and  of  the  "stu- 
pendous conceit "  of  the  friend  who  gave 
him  the  books.  Fifteen  years  later,  when 
he  is  writing  the  eighth  book  of  the  City  of 
God,  he  says  Plato  is  not  only  not  a  god  or 
demi-god,  but  is  not  to  be  compared  with 
an  angel  or  prophet,  an  apostle  or  martyr, 
or,  in  fine,  with  any  Christian  whatever. 
Eleven  years  afterwards  he  writes  in  his 
Retractations:  "The  praise  which  I  be- 
stowed on  Plato  and  the  Platonists  or  Aca- 
demics [the  usual  confusion],  and  which  it 
was  not  proper  to  bestow  on  those  impious 

1  In  order  to  complete  the  present  matter  let  me  add  that  C.  Frick 
(in  his  Die  Quellen  Augustins)  assigns  as  the  Latin  sources  of  his 
learning,  Varro,  Cicero,  Seneca,  Aulus  Gellius,  and  Apuleius,  and  for 
history,  chiefly  Josephus  and  Pompeius  Trogus. 


Light  from  the  East  161 

men,  rightly  displeases  me;  especially  as 
we  have  to  defend  Christian  teaching  against 
their  great  errors." 

The  last  step  in  his  intellectual  conversion 
was  quickly  taken.  From  Plato,  or  Plotinus, 
he  turned  to  Paul,  whom  he  now  read  with- 
out difficulty.  He  himself  somewhat  curi- 
ously describes  the  additional  truths  he 
found  in  St.  Paul  after  the  reading  of  Plato. 
He  says  that  after  reading  the  Platonists  he 
only  conceived  Christ  as  "  a  man  of  excel- 
lent wisdom,"  God  as  a  Being  of  infinite 
and  inaccessible  splendour;  "and,  return- 
ing to  my  customary  ways  in  this  beating 
back  of  my  infirmity,  I  bore  with  me  only  a 
loving  memory,  only  a  desire  of  the  sweet- 
smelling  fruits  I  could  not  yet  eat."  Paul 
taught  him  the  humanity  of  Jesus:  that  God 
"had  built  Himself  a  lowly  house  of  our 
clay,  by  which  He  should  subdue  and  draw 
us  to  Himself,  healing  the  swollen  pride  and 
fostering  the  love  of  His  subjects,  lest  they 
should  go  too  far  in  their  confidence,  but 
should  rather  turn  to  lowliness,  seeing  the 
lowliness  of  God  at  their  feet,  in  the  taking 


1 62  St.  Augustine 

of  our  garment  of  flesh,  and  should  sink  ex- 
hausted into  Him;  and  He  should  rise  and 
uplift  us."  And  again:  "  It  is  one  thing  to 
behold  the  fatherland  of  peace  from  some 
wooded  hill,  and  discover  not  the  path 
to  it  .  .  .  and  another  to  hold  the  way 
that  leads  thither,  fortified  by  the  care  of 
the  Heavenly  King."  Another  interesting 
thought  occurs  in  his  De  Vera  Religione, 
which  illustrates  his  passage  from  Plato  to 
Paul.  He  describes  what  he  conceives  to 
be  the  teaching  of  Plato  —  it  is  really  that 
of  Plotinus  with  the  Christian  features  em- 
phasised. He  then  shows  how  unable 
Plato  was  to  communicate  this  sublime  con- 
ception of  God  to  the  masses,  how  power- 
less the  wisest  of  mortals  would  be  to 
convert  the  world  to  it.  He  thinks  Plato 
himself  would  admit  that  only  a  being  of 
divine  strength  and  wisdom  could  achieve 
that  conversion;  in  other  words,  Plato  him- 
self would  have  accepted  the  Incarnation  of 
Christ  without  demur.  His  long  quest  of 
truth  was  over.  From  a  somewhat  Chris- 
tianised Platonism  he  had  passed  without 


Light  from  the  East  163 

difficulty  to  a  Platonic  Christianity.  Mr. 
Marcus  Dods  has  said  that  Augustine's  ac- 
ceptance of  Christianity  "was  no  more  rad- 
ical than  his  scepticism."  Mr.  Dods  might 
appeal  to  one  of  Augustine's  heretical  oppo- 
nents, Petilianus,  who  said  he  had  "the 
damnable  talent  of  a  Carneades."  How- 
ever, though  it  is  true  Augustine  never  was 
a  sceptic,  it  is  monstrous  to  say  that  he  was 
not  wholly  convinced  of  the  truth  of  his 
new  religion. 


Chapter  VII 

Conversion 

ATIT'HEN  Augustine  spoke  of  his  Platonist 
*  *  education  as  a  vision  of  the  promised 
land  from  the  summit  of  a  wooded  hill, 
he  was  speaking  as  a  Christian.  In  reality, 
Neo-Platonism  was  much  more  than  a  phi- 
losophy. It  was  a  religion,  and  a  religion 
of  ascetic  character  on  its  ethical  side.  Au- 
gustine somehow  ignores  this  side  of  the 
Alexandrian  system,  and  finds  in  it  nothing 
to  correspond  to  the  severe  practical  disci- 
pline of  the  Epistles.  From  that  point  of 
view  he  had  some  reason  to  say  that  the 
Platonist  merely  described  heaven,  while 
St.  Paul  indicated  the  path  to  it.  In  our 
own  day  the  process  of  conversion  would 
be  complete  with  the  mental  progress  we 
have  already  followed.    The  convert  would 

go  on  his  secular  way,  heeding  nothing  of 

164 


Conversion  165 

paths  to  heaven  beyond  a  certain  sobriety 
of  life.  But  when  Augustine  turned  to  St. 
Paul,  he  discovered  that  a  new  gulf  lay  be- 
tween him  and  the  Christian  ideal.  He 
learned  that  even  marriage  was  a  conces- 
sion to  the  weakly;  that  "they  that  are 
Christ's  have  crucified  the  flesh  with  the 
affections  and  lusts."  Certainly,  this  cruci- 
fixion was  not  a  matter  of  obligation.  He 
looked  about  him  in  the  Church,  and  saw 
"that  one  went  this  way  and  another  that." 
But  Paul's  doctrine  was  clear.  The  way  of 
the  strong  and  the  generous,  the  only  secure 
way  to  heaven,  was  the  way  of  detachment 
from  the  things  of  earth.  Then  began  a 
fiercer  struggle  than  he  had  yet  known,  the 
struggle  of  the  ideal  and  the  commonplace 
in  its  tensest  form.  It  was  not  merely  a 
question  of  discharging  his  mistress,  as  is 
sometimes  represented.  Rightly  or  wrongly, 
he  understood  by  an  acceptance  of  Christian  y 
teaching  a  renunciation  of  all  love,  all  wealth, 
all  ambition  of  this  world.  These  were 
roses  in  the  path  of  life,  said  Christ  and  St. 
Paul,  only  to  captivate  the  weak  and  deepen 


1 66  St.  Augustine 

the  strength  of  the  strong.  UI  no  longer 
yearned  to  be  more  certain  about  Thee,  but 
to  be  more  steadfast  in  Thee." 

They  who  picture  the  last  struggle  in  the 
conversion  of  St.  Augustine,  the  best  known 
page  in  his  life,  as  a  struggle  with  sin,  miss 
its  real  significance.  He  hardly  mentions 
the  irregular  attachment  which  held  him; 
he  does  not  say  a  word  of  the  dismissal  of 
his  second  mistress,  and  we  can  only  place 
it  by  conjecture.  It  is  matrimony  he  speaks 
of  continually.  It  is  the  sacrifice  of  all  love 
of  woman  for  the  rest  of  life  that  offers  so 
piercing  a  prospect  to  him.  Christ  or  Epi- 
curus; the  roses  of  this  world  or  those  of 
the  next.  A  mind  like  his  wanted  no  "con- 
cession," in  case  he  was  "  afraid  to  sleep  by 
himself,"  or  as  an  alternative  to  damnation. 
It  seemed  to  him  only  a  few  years  since 
Christ  had  trod  the  roads  of  Roman  Pales- 
tine, and  made  self-denial  the  test  of  disci- 
pleship.  The  thought  of  wealth  and  fame 
he  was  ready  to  abandon;  "but  I  was  still 
firmly  held  by  woman."  In  his  perplexity 
he  consulted  an  aged  priest  of  Milan,  Sim- 


Conversion  167 

plicianus,  the  spiritual  father  of  St.  Ambrose. 
By  a  fortunate  chance  the  priest  had  a  word 
for  him  which  was  better  than  much  coun- 
sel. Augustine  told  him  of  the  Platonist 
works  he  had  been  reading,  and  this  brought 
the  conversation  to  Victorinus,  the  transla- 
tor. Victorinus  was  a  distinguished  rhetor- 
ician, to  whom  a  statue  had  been  erected 
in  the  Roman  forum.  Under  the  direction 
of  Simplicianus  he  had  joined  the  Christian 
Church,  to  which  his  Neo-Platonism  had 
long  disposed  him.  The  event  had  caused 
great  excitement  in  Rome.  His  school  had 
been  attended  by  a  number  of  senators  of 
high  rank,  and,  besides  the  statue,  the  title 
of  clarissimus  had  been  voted  him.  But 
Rome  regarded  his  conversion  with  little 
favour,  and  he  had  to  retire  from  the  schools. 
The  parallel  was  close  enough  to  make  a 
deep  impression  on  Augustine.  The  in- 
ternal struggle  deepened.  "I  was  pressed 
down  with  the  burden  of  the  world,  as  hap- 
pens at  times  in  sleep;  and  the  thoughts 
which  I  directed  to  Thee  were  like  unto  the 
efforts  of  those    who   would  awake,  yet 


1 68  St.  Augustine 


^ 


sink  back  into  the  deep  sleep  they  have 
broken." 

But  one  day  he  and  Alypius  had  a  visit 
from  a  fellow-countryman  in  the  imperial 
service.  In  front  of  Augustine,  as  they  sat 
to  converse,  was  a  book  lying  on  a  gaming- 
table. Pontitianus  opened  it,  and  did  not 
disguise  his  astonishment  on  finding  that  it 
was  a  copy  of  the  Scriptures.  Augustine 
told  him  he  was  "  earnestly  bent  on  the 
study  of  that  book."  Thus  the  conversa- 
tion took  a  religious  turn,  and  Pontitianus, 
being  a  devout  Christian  of  long  standing, 
told  them  the  story  of  Antony  and  the 
monks  of  the  African  desert.  The  story 
entered  like  fire  into  the  soul  of  Augustine. 
Pontitianus  continued  to  talk  of  vocations 
and  monasteries.  At  Treves,  a  few  years 
previously,  two  of  his  fellow-officers  had 
been  suddenly  converted  to  the  monastic 
life  by  reading  the  story  of  Antony.  The 
two  ladies  to  whom  they  were  espoused 
followed  their  example.  Augustine  realised 
with  a  profound  astonishment  that  what  he 
had  trembled  before  as  an  Herculean  task 


Conversion  169 

was  being  accomplished  by  unlettered  men 
and  frail  women  day  after  day  within  a  few 
miles  of  him.  When  Pontitianus  left  them, 
Augustine  took  his  soul  in  his  hands,  and 
faced  the  dilemma  of  his  life.  "  All  my  ar- 
guments were  undone;  there  remained  but 
a  speechless  terror,  for  my  soul  dreaded  as 
death  itself  to  be  taken  from  its  customary 
stream  which  was  bearing  it  to  death." 
Presently  he  cried  to  Alypius,  who  looked 
at  him  in  silent  astonishment:  "What  are 
we  doing?  What  is  this?  What  hast  thou 
heard?  The  unlearned  rise  up  and  take 
hold  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven;  whilst  we, 
with  all  our  learning,  without  heart,  are 
slaves  to  flesh  and  blood."  He  rushed  into 
the  garden,  Alypius  following,  too  agitated 
to  think  or  argue.  The  supreme  moment 
had  come.  It  would  be  an  injustice  to  the 
reader  to  describe  the  issue  in  any  other 
words  than  those  of  Augustine: 

"Thus  was  1  sick  at  heart  and  in  tor- 
ment, accusing  myself  more  bitterly  than 
ever,  tossing  and  turning  in  the  frail  bond 
that  still  held  me,   until  it  should  break 


i7°  St.  Augustine 

asunder;  frail  it  was,  yet  it  held  me  still. 
And  Thy  strict  mercy  was  working  with  me, 
Lord,  lashing  me  with  fear  and  shame  that 
I  might  desist  no  more,  nor  fail  to  break  the 
slender  bond  that  yet  remained;  lest  it 
should  grow  strong  again,  and  hold  me 
more  firmly  than  ever.  For  I  said  in  my 
heart:  '  Let  it  be  now,  let  it  be  now.'  And 
I  almost  went  to  work  as  I  said  it.  Almost 
had  I  done  it,  yet  did  it  not;  nor  yet  did  I 
fall  back  into  my  earlier  state,  but  stood 
nigh  to  it  and  breathed.  I  tried  again,  and 
with  a  little  more  I  was  there,  with  a  little 
more  I  reached  and  held  it;  yet  I  was  not 
there,  nor  reached,  nor  held  it,  hesitating  to 
die  to  death  and  live  to  life.  The  force  of 
evil  custom  was  stronger  in  me  than  the 
new  resolution1;  and  the  nearer  the  mo- 
ment approached  in  which  I  was  to  become 
better,  the  greater  the  dread  it  struck  into 
me.  It  drove  me  not  from  my  purpose,  nor 
turned  me  aside;  but  it  held  me  in  suspense. 
Trifles  of  trifles  and  vanities  of  vanities,  my 

1  With  some  reluctance  I  must  point  out  that  here,  in  the  midst  of 
this  moving  passage,  occurs  one  of  Augustine's  wretched  word-plays. 


Conversion  171 

former  joys,  held  me  back,  and  plucked  my 
fleshly  garment,  and  murmured:  '  Dost  thou 
cast  us  off?  and  from  this  moment  wilt 
thou  leave  us  for  ever  ?  and  from  this  mo- 
ment will  this  or  that  be  forbidden  thee  for 
all  eternity? '  And  what  things  were  those 
they  held  out  to  me,  my  God,  which  I  have 
called  'this  or  that'?  May  Thy  mercy 
keep  them  from  the  soul  of  Thy  servant. 
What  defilement,  what  dishonour!  And 
now  I  did  but  half  hear  their  voices;  they 
no  longer  stood  boldly  in  my  path  and  said 
me  nay,  but  muttered  behind  me,  as  it 
were,  and  furtively  plucked  my  garments  as 
I  walked  away,  that  1  might  turn  and  look 
upon  them.  Yet  they  made  me  slow  to 
shake  them  off,  and  leap  forward  whither  I 
was  called,  when  rooted  habit  said  to  me: 
'  Dost  thou  think  thou  canst  live  without 
them?' 

"But  now  it  said  this  faintly.  For  from 
the  side  toward  which  I  had  set  my  face, 
and  to  which  I  was  hastening,  there  stood 
revealed  the  chaste  dignity  of  continence, 
serene,  joyful  without  dissoluteness,  gravely 


172  St.  Augustine 

beckoning  me  to  come  and  hesitate  not,  and 
stretching  forth  to  receive  and  embrace  me 
pious  hands  that  were  full  of  good  examples. 
So  many  boys  and  girls,  so  many  youths, 
so  many  of  every  age,  so  many  modest 
widows  and  aged  virgins;  and  in  all  these 
continence  was  not  barren,  but  the  fruitful 
mother  of  joyous  children  of  Thee,  O  Lord. 
And  she  laughed  at  me  with  a  laugh  of  wel- 
come, as  though  she  would  say,  '  Canst 
thou  not  do  what  these  have  done?  Or 
did  they,  indeed,  do  it  of  themselves  and 
not  in  the  Lord?  The  Lord  their  God  gave 
them  to  me.  Why  dost  thou  neither  stand 
still  nor  advance?  Cast  thyself  upon  Him; 
fear  not  lest  He  withdraw  His  hand  and 
thou  fall;  cast  thyself  fearlessly,  He  will  re- 
ceive and  heal  thee.'  And  1  blushed  ex- 
ceedingly; for  I  still  heard  the  murmur  of 
those  trifles,  and  lingered  on  the  way.  And 
again  she  seemed  to  say:  '  Listen  no  more 
on  earth  to  those  unclean  members  of  thine, 
that  they  may  die;  they  tell  thee  of  delights, 
but  not  according  to  the  law  of  the  Lord.' 
This  was  the  struggle  that  raged  within  me 


Conversion  1 73 

against  myself.  Alypius,  standing  by  my 
side,  waited  in  silence  the  issue  of  my  un- 
wonted emotion. 

"  But  when  profound  reflection  had  drawn 
my  whole  misery  from  its  secret  depths, 
and  heaped  it  up  in  the  sight  of  my  heart, 
there  came  a  great  storm  with  mighty 
shower  of  tears.  And,  that  I  might  pour  it 
all  forth  with  fitting  words,  I  rose  to  depart 
from  Alypius.  It  seemed  to  me  that  solitude 
was  more  fitting  for  my  tears.  And  I  went 
further  apart,  so  that  even  his  presence 
would  no  longer  be  a  burden  to  me.  Thus 
was  1  minded,  and  he  knew  it;  for  I  know 
not  what  1  had  said,  revealing  the  sound  of 
my  voice  already  heavy  with  grief,  and  had 
then  arisen.  He,  therefore,  remained  in 
great  astonishment  where  we  were  sitting. 
I  flung  myself  beneath  a  certain  fig-tree, 
and  gave  the  rein  to  my  tears;  and  the 
floods  burst  forth  from  my  eyes,  an  accept- 
able sacrifice  to  Thee.  And  many  things  I 
said  to  Thee  in  this  sense,  though  not  in 
these  words:  'And  Thou,  Lord,  how  long 
wilt  Thou  delay?    Wilt  Thou  be  angry  for 


174  St.  Augustine 

ever,  Lord?  Be  not  mindful  of  my  earlier 
iniquity.'  For  I  felt  I  was  hampered  by  it. 
I  poured  out  words  of  misery:  '  How  long? 
How  long?  To-morrow,  and  to-morrow? 
Why  not  now?  Why  not  end  my  baseness 
this  very  hour? ' 

"And,  speaking  thus,  I  wept  with  a  most 
bitter  contrition  in  my  heart.  And  suddenly 
I  heard  from  a  neighbouring  house  the  voice, 
as  it  were,  of  a  boy  or  girl  singing  many 
times:  'Take  up  and  read,  take  up  and 
read.'  I  was  roused  immediately,  and  be- 
gan to  think  intently  whether  children  were 
wont  to  sing  this  in  any  game  of  theirs;  but 
1  could  not  recollect  ever  to  have  heard  it. 
And,  checking  the  flood  of  my  tears,  I  arose, 
thinking  no  other  than  that  it  was  a  Divine 
command  to  me  to  open  the  sacred  volume 
and  read  the  first  chapter  I  lighted  on.  For 
I  had  heard  it  said  of  Antony  that  he  took  to 
himself  the  words  of  a  lesson  from  the  Gos- 
pel which  he  chanced  to  hear,  as  though  the 
words  were  read  to  him:  '  Go,  and  sell  all 
thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor,  and  thou 
shalt  have  treasure  in  heaven,  and  come  and 


Conversion  1 75 

follow  Me';  and  that  he  was  forthwith 
converted  to  Thee  by  this  oracle.  Thus 
admonished,  I  returned  to  the  spot  where 
Alypius  sat;  for  I  had  placed  the  volume  of 
the  Apostle  there  when  I  had  left.  I  grasped 
and  opened  it,  and  read  in  silence  the  chap- 
ter which  first  met  my  eyes:  'Not  in  rioting 
and  drunkeness,  not  in  chambering  and  wan- 
tonness, not  in  strife  and  envying.  But  put 
ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  make  not 
provision  for  the  flesh,  to  fulfil  the  lusts 
thereof.'  I  neither  wished  nor  needed  to 
read  more.  For  with  the  close  of  this  sen- 
tence the  darkness  of  my  doubt  melted 
away,  as  though  a  strong  light  had  shone 
upon  my  heart.  Then,  inserting  my  finger 
or  some  other  mark,  I  closed  the  book,  and 
with  a  tranquil  mind  handed  it  to  Alypius. 
Then  he  betrayed  what  was  passing  within 
him,  which  I  knew  not ;  he  asked  to  see 
what  I  had  read.  I  showed  it  to  him;  and 
he  read  on  beyond  the  place  I  showed  him, 
and  I  knew  not  what  followed.  But  what 
followed  was:  '  Him  that  is  weak  in  the 
faith,  receive  ye.'    This  he  took  to  himself, 


1 76  St.  Augustine 

and  showed  to  me.  With  this  admonition 
he  was  resolved;  and  without  trouble  or 
hesitation  he  joined  with  me  in  the  good 
purpose,  so  befitting  his  ways,  which  were 
already  far  in  advance  of  mine.  We  return 
to  my  mother  in  the  house.  We  tell  her, 
and  she  rejoices.  We  relate  how  it  came 
about;  she  exults  in  triumph,  and  blesses 
Thee  who  art  powerful  to  do  more  than  we 
seek  or  know,  for  she  saw  Thou  hadst 
granted  her  in  my  regard  so  much  more  than 
she  had  asked  in  her  sad  and  tearful  prayers. 
For  Thou  hast  converted  me  to  Thee  so  that 
I  no  longer  seek  wife  nor  any  hope  of  this 
world,  holding  fast  to  the  rule  of  faith  in 
which  Thou  hadst  revealed  me  to  her  so 
many  years  before.  And  Thou  hadst  changed 
her  grief  into  a  joy  far  deeper  than  she  had 
desired,  far  dearer  and  chaster  than  that  she 
had  sought  from  the  children  of  my  flesh." 
This  was  in  the  summer  of  386,  shortly 
after  the  final  triumph  of  St.  Ambrose  over 
the  Empress  and  the  Arian  party.  Justina 
had  an  inflexible  and  incorruptible  prelate 
as  well  as  a  statesman  to  deal  with  in  the 


Conversion  177 

Bishop  of  Milan,  and  she  had  suffered  un- 
mitigated defeat.  Augustine  was  only  a 
spectator  of  the  great  struggle  that  had  so 
long  absorbed  the  attention  of  Milan.  The 
Due  de  Broglie  makes  him  spend  the  night 
with  the  people  and  Ambrose  in  the  church; 
but  Augustine  expressly  says  that  Monica 
alone  shared  that  famous  vigil.  Gibbon  is 
hardly  fair  to  Ambrose  in  the  matter.  The 
Empress  had  no  shadow  of  a  title  to  either 
of  the  churches  which  she  claimed  for  her 
Arian  priests;  it  would  have  been  a  gross 
betrayal  of  his  trust  for  Ambrose  to  surrender 
either.  The  renewal  of  the  struggle  in  the 
Holy  Week  of  386  is  not  so  clear.  We 
know  that  on  other  occasions  Ambrose  re- 
fused to  obey  an  order  to  appear  at  court  in 
a  way  that  boded  ill  for  the  civil  power. 
Whatever  may  be  the  right  of  the  matter,  it 
is  well  known  how  his  congregation  gath- 
ered about  the  bishop,  when  the  court 
threatened  to  banish  him,  and  watched  him 
day  and  night  in  his  house  and  the  church. 
It  was  then  that  Ambrose  introduced  into 
the  church  of  Milan  the  custom  of  singing 


178  St.  Augustine 

hymns  which  prevailed  in  the  East.  Am- 
brose himself  composed  many.  In  June, 
moreover,  Ambrose  made  a  most  fortunate 
find  of  martyrs'  relics,  which  put  a  final  term 
to  "the  woman's  madness."  Not  only  were 
there  many  cases  of  recovery  from  that  op- 
portune disease,  diabolical  possession,  but 
even  a  blind  man  was  restored  to  sight.1 

It  must  have  been  a  few  weeks  after  the 
discovery  of  the  relics  of  Gervasius  and 
Protasius  that  Augustine's  conversion  took 
place.  It  caused  little  excitement  in  the 
city,  because  he  kept  it  a  profound  secret 
from  all  but  a  few  personal  friends  for  the 
few  weeks  that  still  remained  before  the 
summer  holidays.  Then,  though  he  talks 
much  of  his  joy  at  ceasing  "to  sell  lies  and 
folly,"  he  sent  in  a  prudent  notice  that  the 

1  Gibbon  "  would  recommend  this  miracle  to  our  divines  if  it  did  not 
prove  also  the  worship  of  relics."  The  divines  of  our  day  would 
hardly  complain  of  that  circumstance,  but  they  seem  to  entertain 
some  doubt  as  to  the  value  of  Augustine's  testimony  in  such  matters, 
of  which  we  shall  see  a  few  illustrations  later.  Even  here,  whereas 
Augustine  says  the  "  bodies  "  were  incorrupt,  Ambrose  only  speaks  of 
"  bones  "  and  some  blood.  The  Life  of  Ambrose  in  the  Migne  edition 
says  Augustine  "  was  present"  at  the  discovery  or  the  miracles.  Au- 
gustine expressly  says,  in  the  Confessions,  that  he  was  not.  More- 
over, we  shall  see  presently  that  he  most  probably  did  not  admit  these 
miracles  until  years  afterward. 


Conversion  179 

state  of  his  health  (his  lungs  were  giving 
way)  as  well  as  his  conversion  compelled 
him  to  resign.  Augustine  himself  hints  that 
the  manner  of  his  secession  will  not  look 
very  heroic  to  the  faithful  at  large.  There 
is  a  curious  mixture  of  desire  to  avoid  os- 
stentation  and  popularity,  and  sensitiveness 
to  hostile  criticism,  in  the  many  reasons 
he  gives  for  keeping  his  conversion  a 
secret. 

However,  at  the  close  of  the  scholastic 
year  Augustine  retired  to  the  villa  of  his 
friend  Verecundus,  some  miles  out  of  Milan. 
A  local  tradition  claims  Cassago  as  the 
"  Cassiciacum  "  where  Augustine  spent  the 
following  six  months.  M.  Poujoulat,  how- 
ever, seems  to  have  mad^  out  an  unanswer- 
able case  for  Casciago,  a  quiet  little  town  at 
the  foot  of  the  mountains.  To  the  north- 
west it  had  the  superb  horizon  of  Monte 
Rosa  and  the  Pennine  Alps,  whilst  the  ills 
encircled  it  also  on  the  north  and  east,  giv 
ing  broken  glimpses  of  Maggiore  and  a  few 
smaller  lakes  to  the  north-east.  To  the 
south-east  lay  the  broad  panorama  of  the 


180  St.  Augustine 

plain,  dotted  with  towns  and  villages,  and 
relieved  by  an  occasional  hill.  Here  Augus- 
tine spent  the  autumn  and  winter.  His 
mother  and  son  accompanied  him,  and  they 
were  joined  presently  by  his  brother  Navi- 
gius.  Alypius  followed  like  a  shadow,  save 
that  he  far  outran  Augustine  in  ascetic  feel- 
ing, "going  so  far  as  to  tread  barefoot  the 
frozen  soil  of  Italy."  Two  of  Augustine's 
cousins,  Rusticus  and  Lastidianus,  a  com- 
patriot from  Thagaste  named  Evodius,  who 
had  already  been  converted  and  had  aban- 
doned the  imperial  service,  and  the  two 
pupils,  Licentius  and  Trigetius,  completed 
the  group. 

In  the  Confessions  Augustine  says  very 
little  about  their  iife  at  Cassiciacum,  but  we 
have  many  pictures  of  it  in  the  short  treat- 
ises he  cor  there.  It  must  have  been 
one  of  t]x>  hapniest  periods  of  his  life.  Apart 
from  I  iis  he  continued  to  give  Licen- 
ticfs  and  Trigetius,  and  the  administration  of 
his  friend's  estate,  his  whole  time  was  given 
to  study  and  intellectual  and  religious  con- 
versation.    The  morning  was  usually  de- 


Conversion  181 

voted  to  teaching,  and  the  rest  of  the  day, 
after  the  midday  meal  and  sleep,  to  discus- 
sion. Monica  presided  over  the  the  house- 
hold matters ;  but  she,  and  even  the  young 
Adeodatus,  often  took  part  in  the  discus- 
sions. On  feast-days,  such  as  Augustine's 
birthday,  the  whole  day  was  given  up  to  this 
intellectual  dissipation.  If  the  weather  were 
fine,  they  went  to  a  neighbouring  meadow, 
and  held  their  Academy  under  the  shade  of 
a  tree.  In  rough  weather  they  went  to  the 
baths  for  the  purpose.  The  Roman  bath,  of 
course,  contained  many  rooms  for  games 
and  conversation  besides  the  tepidaria,  cal- 
daria,  and  frigidaria,  which  were  used  for 
the  bath  proper.  Augustine  and  his  friends 
frequently  held  discussions  there  which  de- 
manded a  quiet  retreat.  In  these  discus- 
sions Augustine  was  the  chief  speaker,  but 
he  shows  some  eagerness  to  draw  out  every 
member  of  the  group.  Nebridius  remained 
at  Milan,  teaching  for  Verecundus.  Licen- 
tius,  the  clever  but  dreamy  son  of  Romani- 
anus,  seems  to  have  been  bored  by  the 
conversations  at  first.     He  was,  in  fact,  the 


182  St.  Augustine 

last  of  the  group  to  embrace  Christianity.1 
The  young  Adeodatus  put  in  a  boyish  word 
occasionally,  and  Augustine  finds  a  profound 
wisdom  in  the  contributions  of  Monica. 
The  instances  he  gives  are  not  impressive. 
Thus,  they  were  one  day  discussing  the  fol- 
lowers of  Carneades,  and  Monica  asked  who 
these  Academics  were.  When  the  explan- 
ation was  given,  she  laughed  and  said: 
''Those  men  have  the  falling  sickness." 

The  subjects  of  their  discussions  were  of 
the  philosophico-religious  character  which 
we  can  well  conceive  to  reflect  Augustine's 
temper  at  that  time.  In  Scripture  he  was 
studying  the  Psalms.  Ambrose  had  recom- 
mended Isaiah,  but  Augustine  found  the 
Psalms  more  suited  to  his  disposition.  It 
was,  however,  a  passion  for  reasoning  that 
chiefly  characterised  the  stay  at  Cassiciacum. 
In  a  lertei  which  he  wrote  at  the  time  to  Ne- 
bridius,  Augustine  speaks  of  reasoning  as 
'  my  darling."    The  phrase  seems  to  have 

1  Lanciani  {Pagan  and  Christian  Rome)  says  his  body  was  discov- 
red  in  St.  Lorenzo  at  Rome  in  1862,  and  there  was  evidence  that  he 
ud  both  attained  his  ambition  of  senatorial  rank  and  had  died  a  Christ- 
ian.    Verecundus  also  died  a  Christian, 


Conversion  183 

escaped  him  when  he  was  writing  his  Retrac- 
tations in  426;  there  were  so  many  things  to 
amend  in  the  writings  of  those  early  years. 
Fortunately,  the  chief  discussions  they  held 
were  committed  to  writing,  so  that  we  have 
a  large  acquaintance  with  Augustine's  early 
ideas.  Those  who  are  astonished  at  the 
number  of  his  works  should  bear  in  mind 
the  notarius,  or  shorthand  writer,  of  the 
later  Roman  world.  He  was  as  ubiquitous 
with  his  style  and  tablets  as  the  modern 
reporter.  Within  a  couple  of  months  of  the 
arrival  at  Cassiciacum  we  find  that  Augus- 
tine has  at  his  elbow  the  shorthand  writer 
who  is  to  shadow  him  throughout  life.  He 
sits  amongst  them  in  the  meadow  or  at  the 
baths,  and  commits  to  his  waxed  tablets 
every  word  that  is  spoken;  his  style  is  even 
busy  whilst  they  chat  in  returning  to  the 
house,  and  he  records  how  Monica  impa- 
tiently drags  them  in  to  the  expectant 
dinner.  The  notes  are  then  copied  inn 
longhand,  revised  by  Augustine,  and  we 
have  one  of  his  thousand  works.1 

1  Possidius,  his  disciple,  numbers  1030  of  his  works,  including  let- 
ters and  sermons. 


184  St.  Augustine 

The  first  work  which  was  composed  in 
this  way  consisted  of  the  three  books  of 
dialogues,  Contra  Academicos.  The  master 
had  given  his  pupils  the  Hortensius  to  read, 
and  had  then  introduced  his  notary,  and 
started  a  discussion  on  the  pursuit  of  truth. 
It  is  a  sad  proof  of  the  slightness  of  Augus- 
tine's knowledge  of  the  history  of  philoso- 
phy that  he  suggests  (an  opinion  which  he 
frequently  repeated  in  after  life)  that  the 
Academics  were  not  really  sceptics  at  all, 
but  held  the  ideas  of  Plato,  which  they 
concealed  by  a  kind  of  philosophic  "  dis- 
cipline of  the  secret."  However,  he  pro- 
poses for  discussion  the  theory  commonly 
attributed  to  them — that  man  can  never 
reach  the  truth,  though  he  may  find  hap- 
piness in  the  pursuit  of  it.  His  two  young 
pupils  debated  the  question  for  three  days. 
When  Augustine  saw  that  the  defender  of 
Arcesilaus  was  prevailing,  he  restored  the 
balance  himself  with  a  crushing  sophism  on 
the  nature  of  verisimilitude.  In  the  third 
book  he  makes  his  own  attack  on  the  post- 
Socratic  Agnostics,  and  finds  a  ground  of 


Conversion  185 

certainty  in  his  Platonic  conception  of  the 
soul  and  of  rational  truth.  As  there  were 
few  followers  of  either  the  Middle  or  the 
New  Academy  at  that  time,  and  Augustine 
himself  had  never  been  seriously  inclined 
to  a  radical  scepticism,  the  work  has  not 
the  force  of  most  of  his  polemical  produc- 
tions. The  only  important  retractation  he 
found  it  necessary  to  make  in  his  old  age 
was,  as  has  been  said,  a  regret  that  he  had 
given  undue  praise  to  "those  impious  men, 
Plato  and  the  Platonists  or  Academics." 

The  composition  of  this  work  was  inter- 
rupted by  the  production  of  the  dialogues 
De  Beata  Vita.  On  November  13th,  in  the 
midst  of  the  onslaught  on  the  Academics, 
occurred  Augustine's  thirty-third  birthday. 
A  birthday  was  as  important  an  institution 
in  the  Roman  world  as  it  is  in  our  own, 
greetings  and  presents  and  family  banquets 
marking  the  occasion.  After  a  modest  feast 
of  the  body  Augustine  led  his  philosophic 
party  to  the  baths,  promising  them  "  a  feast 
of  the  soul."  The  feast  consisted  of  a 
three-days'  discussion  on  "The  Happy  Life," 


1 86  St.  Augustine 

which  was  afterwards  embodied  in  the 
work  of  that  title.  More  interesting  is  the 
work  which  followed  the  books  Against 
the  Academics.  It  was  a  habit  of  Augus- 
tine's in  the  long  winter  nights  to  lie  awake 
thinking  for  the  first  half  of  the  night.  One 
night,  as  he  lay  philosophising  in  this  way, 
his  attention  was  caught  by  the  irregular 
sound  of  the  stream  that  made  its  way  to 
the  baths  some  distance  from  the  house. 
He  began  to  speculate  on  the  cause  of  the 
irregularity,  and  soon  found  himself  ponder- 
ing on  regularity  and  irregularity  at  large. 
As  he  reflected,  a  noise  made  by  Licentius 
(the  two  pupils  slept  in  the  same  room  as 
their  master)  in  driving  away  a  mouse,  told 
that  he  also  was  awake,  and  he  was  invited 
to  discuss  the  phenomenon.  Trigetius 
joined  in  the  discussion,  which  seems  to 
have  been  maintained  throughout  the  night 
in  the  dark.  The  following  morning  they 
went  to  the  baths  to  continue  it,  and  the 
subject  received  an  enlargement  from  their 
chancing  to  witness  a  cock-fight  in  the 
street.     From  Augustine's  vivid  description 


Conversion  187 

of  the  encounter,  it  is  sadly  evident  that  the 
philosophic  group  formed  an  admiring  ring 
round  the  combatants.  A  few  years  pre- 
viously Augustine  would  have  seen  in  it  — 
as  in  all  nature  "red  in  tooth  and  claw" 
—  a  very  tangible  proof  of  the  Manichean 
theory  of  an  evil  spirit.  Now  he  almost 
finds  in  it  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  an 
all-wise  and  all-loving  Creator.  The  two 
incidents  suggest  the  long  debate  "On 
Order,"  which  forms  his  third  extant  work. 
It  is  chiefly  grounded  on  the  Neo-Platonic 
optimism  and  idea  of  Providence,  and  con- 
tains an  appreciation  of  the  Pythagorean 
idea  of  numbers  which  Augustine  was  care- 
ful to  modify  later  on. 

A  little  later  Augustine  himself  wrote  the 
Soliloquies,  a  Platonic  dialogue  between  "  A  " 
and  "  R  "—  presumably  "Augustine"  and 
"  Reason."  It  is  a  profoundly  earnest  and, 
in  places,  eloquent  paper  on  truth  and  im- 
mortality. Truth  is  now,  for  Augustine, 
merely  a  knowledge  of  God  and  the  soul. 
Later,  as  his  mind  narrows,  we  shall  find  him 
making  truth  synonymous  with  a  knowledge 


1 88  St.  Augustine 

of  what  the  Scriptures  tell  concerning  God 
and  the  soul.  In  387  he  was  still  a  ra- 
tionalist. It  is  mainly  Platonic  thoughts 
about  the  pursuit  of  truth  and  Platonic 
proofs  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  that 
inspire  him.  But  the  work  is  a  subtle,  feel- 
ing, and  graceful  development  of  the  ideas 
he  has  received  ;  and  there  are  eloquent 
passages  in  his  exhortation  to  abandon  the 
world  of  sense  for  this  pursuit  of  truth. 

These  are  the  earliest  expressions  of 
Augustine's  views  which  we  have.  With 
the  exception  of  his  De  Vera  Religione, 
none  of  his  smaller  works  contain  finer 
writing  than  the  sections  of  these  books 
which  he  has  himself  written  at  leisure. 
Yet  Augustine's  Latin  is  never  of  a  very 
high  order.  In  the  fourth  century  the  lan- 
guage had  fallen  much  below  the  level  it  had 
reached  in  the  golden  age  of  Latin  literature. 
We  have  in  his  day,  it  is  true,  what  may, 
without  exaggeration,  be  described  as  a  lit- 
erary revival.  Symmachus  and  Jerome, 
Macrobius  and  Ammianus,  Prudentius  and 
Paulinus,  Claudianus,  Rutilius,  and  Ausonius 


Conversion  189 

form  a  notable  group.  But,  as  has  been 
said,  the  fourth  century  was  formalist  and 
imitative  in  its  conception  of  literary  art ; 
and  so  affectation,  verbal  jugglery,  and 
other  unseemly  features  had  crept  into  the 
language.  Moreover,  in  the  long  interval 
of  comparative  sterility,  the  "plebeian  lan- 
guage "  had  invaded  the  domain  of  culture. 
Both  these  defects  are  conspicuous  in 
Augustine's  writings.  Villemain  contrasts 
his  Latin  very  unfavourably  with  "the  fine 
Roman  diction  "  of  Jerome.  In  philosophic 
thinking  he  is  leagues  ahead  of  his  con- 
temporaries, in  so  far  as  we  know  their 
achievements,  but  this  very  proficiency  in 
philosophy  involves  less  attention  to  literary 
art.  And  in  philosophy  it  is  quite  time  we 
recognised  how  dependent  he  is  on  his  pre- 
decessors. In  so  far  as  these  early  works 
are  concerned,  he  is  simply  a  Neo-Platonist,  x 
without  theurgic  excesses,  and  having,  in 
addition,  a  Scriptural  conception  of  the  In- 
carnation and  regeneration.  The  idea-world 
of  Plato,  the  world  of  abstract  and  necessary 
truths,  is  the  pivot  of  his  speculations.     It 


190  St.  Augustine 

is  no  disparagement  of  Augustine  to  recog- 
nise this. 

In  the  spring  of  387  the  group  returned  to 
Milan.  Those  who  desired  to  be  baptised 
at  Easter  had  to  send  in  their  names  at  the 
beginning  of  Lent,  when  they  began  to 
count  as  competentes.  In  the  course  of  Lent 
they  were  assiduously  instructed  in  the 
Christian  faith,  and  were  examined  from 
time  to  time  on  their  knowledge  and  dis- 
position. A  passage  in  a  later  work  of 
Augustine's  seems  to  indicate  that  he  was 
not  exempted  from  these  instructions  and 
scrutinies ;  indeed,  we  know  that  St.  Am- 
brose was  particularly  conscientious  in  the 
discharge  of  this  duty.  Still  Augustine 
found  time  to  continue  his  literary  work. 
He  wrote  a  work  On  the  Immortality  of  the 
Soul,  in  which  he  developed,  in  a  severe 
style  of  argument,  the  familiar  Platonic 
proofs.  Nourisson1  finds  it  regrettable  that 
Augustine  spent  his  time  in  reproducing 
some  of  Plato's  feeblest  arguments.  Au- 
gustine himself  never  thought  much  of  the 

1  La  Philosophic  de  Saint-Augustin. 


Conversion  191 

work.  He  said  afterwards  that  it  was  so 
obscure  he  scarcely  understood  it  himself; 
it  got  abroad  in  an  unfinished  state,  without 
his  consent.  Yet  it  is,  as  I  said,  closely  and 
carefully  reasoned,  and  there  are  thoughts 
in  it  which  are  still  advanced  by  spiritualist 
philosophers;  such  as  the  eternity  of  ab- 
stract principles,  the  inverse  ratio  of  sense 
and  mind  development,  and  so  forth.  With 
all  that,  it  is  an  unconvincing  work,  bearing 
so  obviously  the  strain  of  "the  will  to  be- 
lieve "  and  to  make  out  a  case. 

At  the  same  period  he  commenced  his  six 
lengthy  books  on  music,  which  we  shall 
meet  later  on,  and  a  number  of  treatises  on 
the  minor  disciplines — grammar,  logic,  rhet- 
oric, geometry,  and  arithmetic.  Only  the 
work  on  grammar  was  completed,  and  was 
lost  in  travelling.  The  others  remained 
in  an  imperfect  state,  and  even  these  rudi- 
ments had  disappeared  before  Augustine's 
death.  The  works  on  these  subjects  which 
circulated  under  Augustine's  name  during 
the  Middle  Ages  are  spurious. 

On  the  vigil  of  Easter,  the  24th  of  April, 


T92  St.  Augustine 

Augustine  was  baptised.  The  legend  of  the 
composition  of  the  Te  Demn  by  him  and 
Ambrose  during  the  ceremony  is,  of  course, 
entirely  discredited.1  There  is  no  reason 
for  thinking  that  Ambrose  attached  great 
importance  to  the  accession.  Augustine 
was  young  and  unknown  outside  a  narrow 
circle  of  friends  and  pupils.  His  son  Adeo- 
datus  and  Alypius  were  baptised  with  him. 
The  long  struggle  was  over;  the  hills  of  his 
vision  were  reached.  He  turned  his  back 
on  the  schools  and  the  Court  and  set  out  for 
Africa. 

1  Though  Cardinal  Rauscher  does  not  hesitate  to  present  it  as  his- 
torical. 


Chapter  VIII 

Return  to   Africa 

/^jSTIA,  where  we  next  meet  Augustine 
^-^  and  his  friends,  was  not  at  that  time  the 
abandoned  and  fever-stricken  ruin  that  we 
know  to-day.  It  was  a  busy  Roman  water- 
ing-place, its  marble  quays  and  handsome 
villas  brightened  by  constant  visitors  from 
the  great  city.  Jaded  lawyers  and  other 
officials  used  to  drive  down  in  the  heat  of 
the  summer,  and  idle  patricians  counted  it, 
like  Baia,  one  of  the  places  that  Jupiter  had 
marked  out  for  relieving  the  ennui  of  pa- 
trician existence.  It  was  also  the  port  of  ar- 
rival from  and  departure  for  Africa.  Many 
a  time,  when  the  corn-ships  from  Africa 
were  late,  its  quays  were  crowded  with 
anxious  Romans,  scanning  the  southern 
horizon  from  morning  until  night.  Augus- 
tine and  his  friends  were  resting  there  after 

193 


194  St.  Augustine 

the  fatigue  of  the  journey,  and  preparing  to 
cross  to  Africa,  when  Monica  contracted  a 
fatal  fever. 

A  fine  page  in  the  Confessions  and  a  paint- 
ing by  Ary  Scheffer  have  immortalised  the 
last  conversation  of  Augustine  and  Monica. 
No  doubt  Augustine  has  somewhat  ethereal- 
ised,  and  given  a  philosophic  complexion  to 
the  discourse  they  held,  leaning  from  the 
window  over  the  garden  of  their  hospice. 
Monica  was  an  uneducated  woman.  Few 
women  stand  out  from  the  crowd,  as  Je- 
rome's pupils  on  the  Aventine  do,  in  that 
age  of  woman's  emancipation.  Moreover, 
there  is  reason  to  think  Monica  was  of  poor 
extraction;  Augustine  describes  her  as  be- 
ing sent  into  the  cellar  to  draw  the  wine 
every  day  in  her  younger  days  —  and  taking 
reprehensible  sips  on  the  return  journey. 
But  she  was  a  woman  of  deep  religious 
feeling  and  exceptional  moderation  of  life. 
The  Church  has  put  many  more  disputable 
models  of  maternity  on  the  roll  of  the  canon- 
ised. She  died  at  Ostia„  Many  years  be- 
fore, she  had  prepared  her  tomb  by  the  side 


Return  to  Africa  195 

of  that  of  her  husband  at  Thagaste.  Now, 
in  her  joy  at  the  generous  conversion  of  her 
son,  she  expressed  a  complete  indifference 
about  it:  "  Place  this  body  anywhere,"  she 
said,  "and  do  not  trouble  about  it;  I  only 
beg  that  you  will  remember  me  at  the  altar 
of  the  Lord,  wherever  you  may  be."  They 
buried  her  at  Ostia,  and  Augustine  has  writ- 
ten her  simple  but  ennobling  epitaph  in  the 
immortal  pages  of  the  Confessions. 

With  the  moving  description  of  the  death 
and  burial  of  his  mother,  Augustine  com- 
pletes the  historical  part  of  his  Confessions, 
The  four  remaining  books  are  devoted  to  a 
quite  irrelevant  and  discursive  treatment  of 
all  kinds  of  philosophic  and  religious  ques- 
tions. In  the  tenth  book  there  is  an  elabo- 
rate argument  for  the  spirituality  of  the  soul 
founded  on  the  power  of  memory.  The 
long  analysis  of  memory  is  one  of  Augus- 
tine's most  notable  pieces  of  psychological 
work.  Although  the  root-thought,  in  this 
and  in  the  dissertation  on  "  Time  "  in  the  fol- 
lowing book,  is  borrowed  from  the  Greeks, 
few  who  read  the  elaborate  and  ingenious 


196  St.  Augustine 

development  will  feel  inclined,  with  M. 
Nourisson,  to  deny  Augustine  any  originality 
in  philosophy.  The  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
books  are  occupied  with  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis. 

In  reading  the  Confessions  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  they  were  not  written  un- 
til about  the  year  400,  or  thirteen  years 
after  Augustine's  conversion,  and  eight 
years  after  his  ordination.  They  were  writ- 
ten, that  is  to  say,  by  the  Bishop  of  Hippo, 
the  leading  theologian  in  the  Western 
Church.  The  two  reasons  which  he  as- 
signs for  writing  them  are  hardly  consistent: 
in  one  place  he  says  that  he  wrote  them  in 
answer  to  a  request  from  friends  for  a  nar- 
rative of  his  earlier  years,  and  in  another 
that  they  were  intended  to  moderate  the 
enthusiasm  of  his  admirers.  Rousseau  and 
Abelard,  the  other  two  illustrious  literary 
penitents,  are  equally  wanting  in  candour 
when  they  have  to  assign  a  reason  for  the 
heroic  candour  of  their  confessions.  Abelard 
pretends  to  write  for  the  consolation  of  a 
suffering  friend,  but  very  obviously  has  an 


Return  to  Africa  ;,     197 

interested  aim.  Rousseau  sets  out  with  a 
grandiose  idea  of  "describing  a  man  in  all 
the  truth  of  nature  ";  after  many  pages  the 
remark  escapes  him  that  so  ugly  a  caricature 
of  Jean  Jacques  is  circulating  in  Paris  and 
Geneva  that  he  will  ^probably  gain  by  telling 
the  whole  truth,  and  so,  as  a  German  critic 
has  said,  "he  persuaded  people  he  was 
virtuous  by  describing  himself  as  vicious." 
It  must  be  stated  that  Augustine  also  had 
many  enemies  in  400,  and  serious  calumnies 
were  circulated  about  him  in  Africa,  so  that 
the  Primate  of  Numidia  had  at  first  refused 
to  ordain  him. 

Yet  few  will  seriously  question  the  un- 
selfishness of  the  Confessions.  Certainly 
we  must  not  exaggerate  the  penitential 
value  of  the  work.  The  one  sin  which  it 
proclaims  was  already  well  known,  both  to 
friends  and  enemies.  The  truth  seems  to 
be  that  the  book  is  a  kind  of  theological 
treatise  and  work  of  edification.  The  Bishop 
of  Hippo  takes  the  rhetorician  as  an  "  awful 
example  "  of  nature  without  God.  To  point 
his  dogmatic  antithesis  of  nature  and  grace, 


198  St.  Augustine 

philosophy  and  Christianity,  nothing  could 
be  more  forceful  than  his  own  career, 
painted  as  darkly  as  conscience  would  per- 
mit. There  was  this  subtle  consolation  for 
the  writer  that,  if  unregenerate  nature  is  so 
impotent,  its  responsibility  cannot  be  great 
in  the  absence  of  grace.  Hence  the  theo- 
logian could  dissect  his  dead  self  with  calm- 
ness, and  cheerfully  send  the  work  to  his 
friends.  But  the  fallacy  of  it  all  for  us, 
reducing  its  value  as  a  human  document, 
is  that  Augustine  examines  his  earlier  life 
from  a  false  point  of  view.  We  know  how 
remote  his  earlier  conduct  was  from  the 
lofty  ideal  of  his  later  years;  but  the  real 
moral  drama  lies  in  its  relation  to  his  pre- 
Christian  conscience.  Thus  the  very  altitude 
of  the  later  ideal  spoils  the  psychological 
interest  of  the  Confessions.  The  penitent  is 
face  to  face  with  God  throughout,  striving 
to  maintain  throughout,  the  Divine  point 
of  view.  Fortunately,  he  drops  from  the 
heavens  occasionally,  and  mingles  shrewd 
reflections,  subtle  speculations,  and  warm 
human  discourse  with  his  narrative.    They 


Return  to  Africa  199 

it  is  that  have  secured  for  the  Confessions 
not  merely  immortality,  but  immortal  in- 
terest. 

After  the  burial  of  his  mother,  Augustine 
appears  to  have  returned  to  Rome  instead 
of  continuing  his  journey  to  Africa.  Tille- 
mont,  the  great  authority  for  dates  and 
movements  in  his  life,  conjectures  that  he 
was  deterred  by  news  of  the  unsettled  state 
of  Africa  owing  to  the  campaign  of  Maxi- 
mus.  He  therefore  decided  to  remain  at 
Rome  until  the  struggle  was  over.  We 
can  well  imagine  with  what  new  eyes  he 
looked  upon  the  life  of  the  Eternal  City.  He 
had  never,  indeed,  entered  into  its  gaiety, 
or  admired  its  brutal  pleasures  and  its  dearly 
bought  luxury.  The  change  was  chiefly  in 
his  religious  outlook.  He  was  no  longer 
indifferent,  or  even  cynical,  with  regard 
to  its  conflicting  gods  and  rival  altars. 
There  was  now  a  sun  in  his  mental  firma- 
ment, and  he  saw  only  what  it  illumined 
in  life.  The  paganism  of  Rome  he  once 
more  entirely  ignores.  It  was  not  until  a 
serious  cry  rang  out  of  the  pagan  world 


200  St.  Augustine 

after  the  fall  of  Rome  that  he  turned  to 
consider  the  old  religion.  The  City  of  God 
is  almost  his  first  notice  of  the  chief  rival 
of  Christianity.  Probably  the  Church  itself 
was  less  anxious  about  the  old  religion  than 
it  had  been  on  his  arrival  in  Italy.  Praetext- 
atus  was  dead;  Symmachus  had  abandoned 
the  contest.  Jerome  had  ceased  to  com- 
promise the  Church  with  his  imprudent 
letters.  The  law  of  382  was  quietly  doing 
its  work.  In  the  West,  under  the  strong 
Theodosius,  temples  were  being  levelled  to 
the  ground  by  the  Christian  people,  led 
by  fanatical  priests  and  monks.  At  Rome 
the  sacrificial  fires  were  going  out  one  by 
one  for  want  of  funds.  In  a  few  more 
years  the  bishops  would  find  it  opportune 
to  advise  Valentinian  to  close  the  temples 
and  prohibit  the  old  cult.  Earnest  religion 
was  retreating  to  the  Vatican,  without  the 
walls,  where  the  temples  of  Christ  and 
Mithra  mingled  their  incense-fumes  in  sig- 
nificant proximity. 

For  Augustine  the  one  great  abomination 
in  Rome  was  the  small  and  obscure  group 


Return  to  Africa  201 

of  Manicheans.  He  at  once  opened  a  bitter 
and  lifelong  campaign  on  his  old  religion.1 
By  word  and  style  he  pursued  these ' '  barking 
dogs,"  and  whipped  them  for  their  "most 
unblushing  pertinacity  "  on  every  occasion. 
Two  works  especially  were  written  against 
them  by  him  at  this  time.  The  first,  called 
On  the  Quantity  of  the  Soul,  is  mainly 
directed  to  proving  the  spirituality  of  the 
soul.  Its  chief  argument  is,  once  more, 
an  appeal  to  the  characters  of  mathematical 
and  other  abstract  truths.  But  it  deals  also 
with  the  questions  of  the  origin  and  destiny 
of  the  soul.  It  is  indirectly  against  the  Mani- 
cheans, though  it  really  consists  of  a  series 
of  dialogues  he  held  with  his  friend  Evodius 
on  the  questions  raised.  He  also  began 
about  this  time  to  write  his  work  on  Free 
Will.  This  also  was  suggested  by  Evod- 
ius, who  raised  the  question  of  moral  evil. 

1  Personally  I  am  disposed  to  see  in  this  a  quite  natural,  if  not 
laudable,  expression  of  zeal  for  truth  and  for  the  removal  of  what 
Augustine  now  felt  to  be  a  superstition.  But  I  have  so  frequently 
heard  from  reputable  theologians  and  journalists  that  it  is  a  grave 
question  of  propriety  and  honour  for  a  man  to  turn  and  rend  the 
institution  or  sect  he  has  just  quitted  that  1  leave  the  matter  to 
these  people. 


202  St.  Augustine 

Our  sober  Pelagius  had  not  yet  appeared  in 
the  Roman  world  with  his  heretical  admir- 
ation of  human  nature,  so  that  Augustine 
was  quite  free  to  throw  the  whole  burden 
of  moral  evil  on  the  human  will.  It  was 
very  simple:  "Man  had  marred  what  God 
had  made,"  in  the  phrase  which  soothes 
so  many  minds  to-day.  The  first  book  of 
the  De  Libero  Arbitrio  is  an  admirable  Pe- 
lagian treatise. 

'  But  he  makes  a  direct  and  unsparing  at- 
tack on  his  late  colleagues  in  the  companion 
works  On  the  Morals  of  the  Church  and  On 
the  Morals  of  the  Manichees.  It  is  clear  (of. 
1.  ii.  cxii.)  that  these  were  not  completed 
and  published  until  he  had  returned  to 
Africa.  However,  they  were  mainly  com- 
posed during  his  stay  at  Rome,  and  so  they 
reflect  his  mind  and  temper  at  that  period. 
It  is  in  these  that  he  discovers  "the  most 
shameless  pertinacity  "  of  his  Manichean 
friends.  The  works  are  of  little  value  be- 
yond affording  an  indication  that  Augustine's 
mind  is  already  hardening  into  intolerance. 
They  are  feeble  in  argument  and  poor  in 


Return  to  Africa  203 

literary  texture.  The  first  is  a  plain,  inelo- 
quent  description  of  the  Christian  ideal  and 
the  monastic  fervour  and  model  communi- 
ties (such  as  that  at  Marcella's  palace) 
which  it  has  inspired.  The  argument  is  a 
challenge  to  the  Manicheans  to  exhibit  a 
similar  inspiration.  Had  Augustine  pub- 
lished this  in  Rome,  his  late  friends  would 
have  smiled  and  pitied  him.  Jerome,  who 
knew  Rome,  had  already  written  (in  384) 
the  letter  to  Eustochium  in  which,  after  a 
violent  attack  on  the  women  and  priests  of 
the  Christian  community,  he  said  that 
when  they  met  a  woman  of  unusual  gravity 
and  ascetic  appearance  in  the  street  they  at 
once  concluded  she  was  a  Manichee.  The 
second  work  is  still  more  unfortunate.  His 
attack  on  the  dogmas  of  the  Manichees  is 
unanswerable.  The  idea  of  evil  which  he 
has  learned  from  Plotinus  cuts  fatally  to  the 
root  of  their  system,  and  it  is  an  easy  task 
to  criticise  them  in  details.  He  does  not 
seem  to  realise,  however,  that  much  of  his 
irony  cuts  two  ways.  "Are  we  to  find 
out  God  by  the  eye  and  the  nose  ?  "  he 


204  St.  Augustine 

scornfully  asks,  in  criticism  of  the  Manichean 
contention  that  the  glory  of  the  flower 
reveals  the  presence  of  divinity.  But  the 
poison  is  in  the  tail  of  the  treatise,  which 
consists  of  a  petty  attack  on  the  Manichean 
moral  ideal  and  a  batch  of  malodorous 
scandals.  This  also  was  a  questionable 
policy  to  adopt  in  the  face  of  Jerome's  well- 
known  letters.  But  the  most  serious  cir- 
cumstance is  that  Augustine's  stories  will 
not  bear  examination.  Only  five  years  af- 
terwards he  was  publicly  challenged  by  a 
reputable  Manichean  bishop,  Fortunatus,  to 
discuss  "  the  morals  of  the  Manichees."  He 
tried  for  some  time  to  evade  the  question, 
but  at  length  was  forced  to  admit  that  he 
had  "  never  seen  anything  wrong  in  the 
assemblies  he  was  present  at,  and  was  not 
in  a  position  to  know  what  took  place 
amongst  the  elect."  Probably  Augustine 
little  knew,  when  he  began  throwing  stones, 
how  fragile  a  house  he  had  entered. 

Towards  the  autumn  of  388  peace  was  re- 
stored to  the  Empire,  and  Augustine  sailed 
for  Africa.     He  and  his  friends  intended  to 


Return  to  Africa  205 

continue  at  Thagaste  the  community  life 
they  had  enjoyed  at  Cassiciacum,  but  a 
point  of  some  interest  occurs  in  connection 
with  a  short  stay  they  made  in  Carthage. 
They  were  detained  by  a  friend  named  In- 
nocentius.  A  year  or  two  after  this  Augus- 
tine wrote  his  fine  treatise  On  the  True 
Religion,  for  the  purpose  of  converting  to 
Christianity  his  friend  Romanianus,  who 
tarried  in  an  eclectic  theism.  The  argument 
of  the  work  is,  naturally,  wholly  philosoph- 
ical. There  is  a  wise  appreciation  of  the 
work  of  reason  in  establishing  the  prelimin- 
ary truths  of  faith,  seeing  that,  Augustine 
says,  miracles  are  no  longer  wrought  in  its 
interest.  In  the  Retractations  Augustine 
wishes  us  to  believe  that  he  meant  to  say 
that  "  the  same  miracles  "  are  not  wrought 
in  his  day.  No  one  who  reads  the  De  Vera 
Religione  with  an  impartial  study  of  its  ar- 
gument will  admit  this.  And  the  most  per- 
plexing circumstance  is  that  some  of  the 
miracles  which  he  quotes  from  personal 
knowledge  in  the  City  of  God  were  related 
to  him  during  his  stay  at  Carthage  — two 


206  St.  Augustine 

years  before  he  wrote  the  De  Vera  Religione. 
We  are  forced  to  an  interesting  conclusion, 
which  the  hagiographer  has  overlooked : 
Augustine  smiled  at  his  host's  miracles  in 
388,  and  only  learned  to  appreciate  them 
years  afterwards. 

There  is  a  further  circumstance  of  some 
interest  to  those  who  are  familiar  with 
"  lives  "  of  St.  Augustine.  They  only  relate 
two  miracles,  whereas  Augustine  gives  three 
in  the  City  of  God.  The  omitted  miracle 
happened  to  a  physician,  a  feature  which 
alone  should  secure  for  it  honourable  men- 
tion. The  poor  man  was  tormented  by  the 
demons  because  he  was  determined  to  be 
baptised;  and  one  night,  though  he  suffered 
from  gout,  a  number  of  them  came  into  his 
room  in  the  form  of  little  nigger  boys  and 
danced  a  prolonged  dance  on  his  feet.  Like 
the  miracle  of  the  young  woman  of  Hippo, 
who  was  cured  by  being  rubbed  with  oil 
into  which  a  priest  had  dropped  a  few  tears, 
this  interesting  event,  given  on  Augustine's 
authority,  is  generally  neglected.  Indeed, 
one  of  the  two  miracles  usually  given  is  far 


Return  to  Africa  207 

less  impressive  than  it  seems  when  one  reads 
the  whole  story.  Augustine  asked  the  wo- 
man, who  had  been  cured  of  cancer,  why 
she  had  not  proclaimed  the  miracle  from  the 
house-tops.  She  said  she  had  done  so;  but 
when  he  asked  her  intimate  friends,  they 
knew  nothing  of  it.  She  finally  excused 
herself  on  the  ground  that  her  physician  had 
laughed  at  her  story.  The  truth  is  that 
Augustine  became  a  model  of  trustfulness  in 
the  acceptance  of  evidence.  He  admits  the 
pagan  miracles,  narrated  by  Livy  and  Varro, 
etc.,  without  a  murmur;  they  prove  the  ex- 
istence of  a  devil  just  as  surely  as  Christian 
miracles  tell  the  power  of  God. 

But  we  are  dealing  with  Augustine  in  388, 
when  reasoning  has  not  yet  totally  ceased 
to  be  his  "darling."  From  Carthage  we 
must  follow  him  to  Thagaste,  where  the  new 
community  was  to  be  established.  The 
house  which  his  father  had  left  him  in  the 
outskirts  of  Thagaste  became  a  monastery. 
The  transformation  of  the  Epicurean  idea 
was  now  complete.  He  had  the  daily  fel- 
lowship of  his  friends,  it  is  true,  but  there 


208  St.  Augustine 

was  no  longer  any  difference  of  opinion 
about  woman.  No  woman,  not  even  Augus- 
tine's sister,  was  allowed  to  live  under  their 
roof.  They  still  talked  reverently  of  Plato 
and  Pythagoras,  as  of  men  through  whom 
God  had  shown  the  faint  dawn  of  the  Christ- 
ian revelation.  But  in  the  affairs  of  this 
world  they  had  no  part.  The  only  news 
from  Rome  that  interested  them  was  that 
another  senator,  Paulinus  (afterwards  of 
Nola),  had  embraced  Christianity  and  de- 
serted the  Empire;  that  the  prefect  of  Rome, 
Gracchus,  the  prefect  of  Gaul,  C.  Postumus 
Dardanus,  and  the  senator  Pammachius,  had 
abandoned  the  old  religion.  To  the  material 
dangers  that  were  gathering  thick  about  the 
Empire  they  were  supremely  indifferent.  It 
was  the  life  beyond  the  grave  that  mattered; 
this  world  was  but  a  stage,  set  with  death- 
traps on  every  side,  on  which  the  Christian 
must  play  his  part  warily.  The  love  of  wo- 
man or  child,  the  breath  of  wine,  even  the 
perfume  of  the  rose  and  the  gladness  of  song 
{Confessions,  x.),  were  snares  cunningly  set 
—whether  by  kind  or  hostile  hand  they 


Return  to  Africa  209 

could  not  say.  Alypius  and  Evodius  were 
with  him  from  the  first.  Nebridius  returned 
to  his  home  near  Carthage,  where  he  died 
shortly  afterwards.  Romanianus  declined 
to  follow  him  into  Christianity.  Licentius 
roamed  out  into  the  wide  world,  in  search 
of  pleasure  and  poetry  and  honour.  But 
Augustine  sold  all  his  property  except  this 
house,  and  thus  endowed  his  monastery,  so 
that  very  shortly  he  gathered  a  number  of 
converts  about  him. 

This  was  the  foundation  of  the  Augus- 
tinian  order,  the  cradle  of  the  monasticism 
of  the  West.  Not  that  Augustine  had  any 
idea  of  founding  what  we  now  call  an 
1 '  order "  or  a  peculiar  institution.  It  was  not 
until  1246  that  the  scattered  communities  of 
"  Augustinians  "  were  gathered  into  a  fully 
organised  body  under  a  general.  But  in  the 
meantime  the  ''rule  of  St.  Augustine"  had 
inspired  the  great  order  from  which  so  many 
others  descended.  The  Donatists  in  later 
years  accused  Augustine  of  being  the  founder 
of  monasticism  in  Africa;  I  say  "accused," 
because  it  was  not  many  years  before  Africa 


210  St.  Augustine 

was  overrun  by  a  vagabond  tribe  of  hypo- 
crites and  faineants,  whom  Augustine  himself 
was  frequently  forced  to  attack.  Augustine 
was  not,  however,  the  parent  of  the  idea,  as 
we  have  seen.  It  had  been  introduced  into 
the  West  by  the  Egyptian  monks  who  ac- 
companied Athanasius,  and  had  been  zeal- 
ously propagated  by  Jerome,  who  sent  fiery 
letters  and  eloquent  "lives"  of  the  hermits 
from  his  own  retreat.  It  was  in  Italy  that 
Augustine  learned  the  idea;  though,  it  will 
be  remembered,  he  had  always  shown  a 
leaning  to  the  cenobitic  model. 

Unfortunately,  Augustine  had  more  zeal 
than  discretion  in  propagating  the  monastic 
life  in  Africa.  In  the  democratic  feeling  which 
had  come  upon  him  he  demanded  that  the 
doors  of  the  monastery  should  be  opened 
wide  to  the  whole  world.  No  one  should  ask 
even  for  a  token  of  religious  purpose  in  the 
aspirant.  Labourers  from  the  fields,  slaves, 
and  others  of  the  lowest  classes,  were  to 
be  admitted  without  a  question,  "even  if 
they  give  no  proof  of  a  change  of  life."1 

De  Opere  Monachorum,  c.  25. 


Return  to  Africa  211 

Pious  masters  and  mistresses  were  exhorted 
to  free  their  slaves  whenever  such  desired  to 
enter  a  monastery.  The  result  was  that  the 
monasteries,  which  soon  sprang  up  like 
mushrooms  on  every  side,  were  flooded  with 
slaves,  cunning,  hypocritical,  sensual  idlers. 
We  shall  see  in  the  course  of  our  study  that, 
side  by  side  with  the  finer  characters  who 
were  given  to  the  Church  by  Augustine's 
monasteries,  there  were  a  number  of  black 
sheep  living  under  his  very  eyes  for  years.  In 
the  Egyptian  deserts,  no  doubt,  there  were 
plenty  oftheidylliccommunities  which  charm 
us  in  the  pages  of  Mr.  Kingsley's  Hypatia  and 
M.  Anatole  France's  Thais.  It  was  very  dif- 
ferent in  North  Africa,  where  the  hot  breath 
of  the  cities  was  not  warded  off  by  long  miles 
of  desert  land.  There  was  this  important 
difference,  too,  that  Augustine's  ascetical 
idea  was  moderate.  It  was  the  ideal  of  a 
philosopher.  Provided  the  chief  luxuries 
of  life  were  sacrificed,  and  the  will  was 
strengthened  by  a  sober  diet  and  an  occa- 
sional fast,  he  did  not  see  the  need  of  inflict- 
ing so  much  positive  self-torture.    Whilst 


212  St.  Augustine 

Jerome  was  gashing  his  naked  breast  with 
stones  in  his  Syrian  hermitage,  Augustine 
was  quietly  taking  his  plain  dinner  and 
cup  of  wine  at  his  neatly  appointed  table. 
Whilst  Jerome  exaggerated  the  sterner  coun- 
sels of  Christ,  Augustine  attenuated  them. 
In  one  of  his  sermons  (No.  101),  he  explains, 
in  a  pleasant  way,  what  Christ  meant  by 
forbidding  His  disciples  to  carry  purses,  wear 
shoes,  and  so  forth.  "Lord,"  he  says, 
"Thou  didst  suffer  a  theft  in  Thy  company  : 
what  hadst  Thou  that  the  thief  might  take 
from  ?  "  So  the  "  purse  "  must  mean  "  wis- 
dom closed  up,"  not  a  bag  of  money.  In 
the  same  way  shoes,  or  "  dead  skins,"  mean 
"  dead,  or  unregenerate,  works."  It  is  intel- 
ligible, therefore,  that  the  African  monaster- 
ies should  offer  a  comparatively  agreeable 
retreat  for  the  driven  and  despised  slave,  who 
had  as  much  chance  as  any  other  of  becom- 
ing superior,  and  the  overworked  agricul- 
tural labourer.  In  about  ten  years  Augustine 
had  to  write  a  work  in  criticism  of  the  army 
of  monks  he  had  created.  We  may  resume 
the  question  when  we  come  to  that  period. 


Return  to  Africa  213 

But  one  further  point  calls  for  notice  at 
the  present  stage.  Augustine  very  quickly 
learned  an  uncompromising  zeal  for  with- 
drawing people  from  the  world.  We  have 
seen  how  Jerome  urged  men  to  push  aside 
a  heartbroken  mother,  and  tread  over  a 
prostrate  father,  in  order  to  fly  to  the  de- 
sert. We  like  to  conceive  Augustine  as  pre- 
eminently sober  and  humane  in  his  religion; 
but  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  this,  as  in  at 
least  one  other  point,  his  humane  feeling 
was  overruled.  There  are  passages  in  his 
writings  which  rival  Jerome's  heroic  advice. 
Thus  in  a  letter  (Ep.  243)  to  a  man  named 
Lastus,  he  says,  in  urging  him  to  disregard 
his  mother's  prayers  that  he  would  not 
abandon  her:  "  What  does  it  matter  whether 
it  be  in  the  person  of  wife  or  mother,  since 
we  have  to  beware  of  Eve  in  every  wo- 
man ? "  Already  the  city  of  the  world, 
with  all  the  affections  and  ambitions  that 
brighten  its  momentary  life,  was  becoming 
contemptible,  as  the  vision  of  the  City  of 
God  grew  in  his  mind. 

It  is  impossible  to  relate  the  founding  of 


214  St.  Augustine 

Augustine's  monastery  at  Thagaste  without 
a  hint,  at  least,  of  what  that  tiny  seed  con- 
tained. But  during  the  three  years  which 
followed  Augustine's  return  to  Africa  there 
was  no  indication  of  the  alarming  growth 
which  was  soon  to  appear  — alarming  even 
to  the  sower  of  the  seed.  During  those 
three  years  Augustine  and  a  few  compan- 
ions prayed  and  read  and  talked,  with  no  de- 
finite thought  of  the  future.  They  awaited 
death,  their  supreme  goal  in  this  life.  In 
the  meantime  they  shut  out  the  distracting 
life  of  the  world  from  their  home  as  com- 
pletely as  possible.  In  the  course  of  time, 
as  appears  from  a  letter  to  Nebridius,  the 
citizens  of  Thagaste  constituted  Augustine 
a  kind  of  informal  magistrate  and  councillor, 
but  he  was  always  impatient  of  their  secular 
affairs.  His  chief  concern  was  controversy. 
He  wrote,  or  commenced,  a  number  of 
works  at  this  time,  besides  maintaining  a 
busy  correspondence.  It  was  at  Thagaste 
that  he  wrote  the  Treatise  on  the  True 
Religion,  which  I  have  quoted  previously. 
This  little  treatise  is  not  only  the  most  care- 


Return  to  Africa  215 

fully  written  of  Augustine's  works,  but  it 
also  illustrates  in  a  peculiarly  interesting 
way  the  transitional  theology  he  held  at  the 
time.  It  was  written  for  the  purpose  of 
converting  his  wealthy  friend,  Romanianus, 
who  had,  we  gather,  remained  in  an  eclectic 
frame  of  mind,  favouring  Christianity,  Pla- 
tonism,  and  Manicheism.  1  have  already 
told  of  the  denial  of  miracles  which  he  after- 
wards explained  away.1  Another  section 
which  gave  him  some  uneasiness  in  after 
years  was  that  in  which  he  meets  the  Mani- 
chean  difficulty  about  moral  evil.  The 
Manichees  explained  it  with  their  usual 
facility:  there  was  a  bad  soul  as  well  as  a 
good  soul  in  man.  Against  this  Augustine 
urges  that  moral  evil  is  wholly  traceable  to 
man's  free  will.  In  later  years  the  Pelagians 
searched  these  early  works  of  Augustine's 
to  good  purpose.  The  finest  part  of  the 
work,  however,  is  that  in  which  he  con- 
trasts Platonism  and  Christianity,  very  much 
in  the  spirit  in  which  Mr.  Kingsley  has  con- 

1  In  the  same  treatise  he  rejects  all  cultus  of  saints  or  martyrs: — Non 
sit  nobis  religio  cultus  hominum  mortuorum. 


2 r6  St.  Augustine 


23 


trasted  them  in  our  days.  He  is  still  full  of 
admiration  for  the  Platonist  religion  (into 
which,  1  must  admit,  he  reads  a  certain 
quantity  of  Christianity),  but  he  insists  on 
the  powerlessness  of  Plato  and  Socrates  to 
touch  the  masses.  With  them  religion  was 
necessarily  an  aristocratic  concern.  Christ- 
ianity has  spread  the  finest  elements  of 
Platonism  in  every  grade  of  society.  Also, 
Socrates  and  Plato,  he  says,  connived  at  the 
popular  polytheism  through  fear;  Christian- 
ity faced  it,  with  the  strength  of  a  Divine 
foundation  and  Divine  example.  The  work 
is  a  fine  expression  of  a  rational  and  hu- 
mane theology,  making  one  almost  wish 
Augustine  had  never  known  the  fatal  dig- 
nity of  the  episcopate,  with  its  flood  of 
work  and  its  insinuating  interests.  Roman- 
ianus  responded  to  the  appeal,  and  became 
a  Christian. 

It  was  also  about  this  time  that  he  com- 
menced his  long  and  anxious  labours  on  the 
interpretation  of  Genesis.  It  was  the  Mani- 
chean  criticism  which  prompted  his  concern 
to  rationalise  the   puzzling  narrative,   and 


Return  to  Africa  217 

the  first  attempt  to  deal  with  it  was  a  small 
work  On  Genesis :  Against  the  Maniehees.  It 
reproduced  in  a  simple  style  the  arguments 
he  had  urged  in  his  more  scholarly  De  Mori- 
bus  Manichceorum.  But  its  allegorical  treat- 
ment of  the  Genesiac  legends  did  not  please 
him  long.  A  few  years  later,  convinced 
that  Genesis  was  in  accord  with  the  physics 
and  astronomy  of  the  day,  he  ventured 
upon  his  De  Genesi  ad  Literam.  His  ingen- 
uity broke  down,  however,  and  the  work 
remained  unfinished  until  about  the  year 
400,  when  he  wrote  his  large  commentary 
on  Genesis  "to  the  letter."  These  works 
form  a  monument  to  Augustine's  courage 
and  ingenuity.  But  one  reads  them  with 
a  feeling  of  pity  now  that  Mr.  Sayce  and 
other  reputable  scholars  have  told  us  whence 
these  stories  were  copied. 

He  then  completed  his  work  On  Music,  a 
very  curious  work,  showing  a  bewildering 
knowledge  of  the  teaching  of  the  time  under 
that  head.  The  first  five  books  deal  in  a 
dry  and  technical  way  with  the  definition 
of  music,  rhythm,  metre,  and  verse.     In  the 


218  St.  Augustine 

sixth  book  he  suddenly  rises  to  a  Pythago- 
rean height  of  theology.  In  later  years, 
when  a  bishop  asked  for  a  copy  of  this 
work,  he  replied  that  he  would  send  one  if 
he  could  find  one,  but  he  rather  hoped  he 
could  not.  His  letters  to  his  friend  Nebrid- 
ius,  written  at  this  period,  also  contain 
some  points  of  interest,  and  bring  out  the 
more  human  side  of  Augustine.  He  has  not 
yet  forgotten  how  to  make  jokes,  and  he 
has  shrewd  suggestions  still  in  matters  of 
secular  knowledge.  Thus,  when  Nebridius 
asks  why  the  sun  is  larger  than  the  stars, 
Augustine  prophetically  raises  the  question 
of  their  relative  distance  from  the  earth.  A 
letter  to  a  grammarian  of  his  old  school- 
town,  Madaura,  elicits  an  answer  of  less 
pleasant  interest.  Maximus  had  written  to 
plead,  in  a  polite  and  amiable  way,  the 
cause  of  the  old  religion,  but  Augustine 
returns  a  very  harsh  reply,  making  a  bit- 
ter and  contemptuous  attack  on  the  poor 
Olympians. 

Towards  the  end  of  his  stay  at  Thagaste, 
he  lost  his  son,  Adeodatus.     Augustine  says 


Return  to  Africa  219 

he  had  long  been  alarmed —  "  horrified,1'  he 
says  — by  the  boy's  precocious  intelligence, 
and  no  doubt  the  daily  contact  with 
Augustine's  philosophic  friends  and  his  con- 
stant presence  during  their  discussions 
had  greatly  advanced  his  development. 
We  have  an  interesting  proof  in  the  little 
work  Of  the  Master,  a  dialogue  between 
the  father  and  son,  leading  up  to  the  words 
of  Christ,  "One  is  your  Master."  Augus- 
tine assures  us  that  the  words  assigned 
to  Adeodatus  are  faithfully  recorded,  and 
they  show  a  good  deal  of  cleverness  and 
thoughtfulness. 

Augustine  spent  three  years  in  his  retreat 
at  Thagaste.  It  would  hardly  be  profitable 
to  speculate  on  the  probable  development 
of  his  thoughts  if  he  had  remained  through- 
out life  in  this  tranquil  and  leisurely  condi- 
tion. It  was  impossible  that  he  should 
remain  long  in  his  monastery.  The  African 
Church  was  in  pressing  need  of  competent 
ministers.  Few  of  its  bishops  had  any  dis- 
tinction for  learning  or  any  other  impressive 
quality;  and,  owing  to  the  monopoly  of 


220  St.  Augustine 

the  chief  functions  (such  as  preaching)  by 
the  bishops,  there  were  no  priests  of  ability, 
apart  from  the  few  who  awaited  the  vacant 
sees.  The  bishop  rather  corresponded  to 
the  modern  vicar  or  aire,  the  few  priests 
who  were  attached  to  each  (save  in  such  a 
town  as  Carthage)  representing  his  curates. 
Hence  there  was  an  inordinate  number  of 
bishoprics  in  the  struggling  African  Church, 
and  a  constant  observation  was  maintained 
for  desirable  candidates.  At  Carthage,  more- 
over, Augustine  had  met  an  energetic  young 
deacon,  named  Aurelius,  who  had  since 
become  bishop  of  that  place.  It  was  not 
long  before  many  covetous  eyes  were  bent 
on  the  monastery  of  Thagaste.  Augustine 
had  to  move  about  with  the  prudence  of  a 
debtor  whenever  he  left  his  monastery.  He 
remembered  the  story  of  Ambrose's  election, 
and  the  extraordinary  means  by  which  he 
had  fruitlessly  tried  to  evade  the  office 
thrust  on  him.  The  congregations  of  the 
fourth  century  were  not  easily  disconcerted 
when  they  had  chosen  a  priest  or  bishop. 
Bishop  Synesius  of  Ptolemais  —  familiar  to 


Return  to  Africa  221 

readers  of  Hypatia  —  vainly  pointed  out  that 
he  was  a  heretic,  and  married  to  boot,  when 
the  people  demanded  his  consecration.  Au- 
gustine had  to  decline  many  insidious  invi- 
tations to  visit  towns  or  villages  where  a 
bishop  was  required. 

It  was  in  391  that  Augustine  was  at  length 
captured  and  pressed  into  the  service  of  the 
Church.  A  government  official  of  Hippo 
(now  Bona),  on  the  coast,  had  expressed  a 
willingness  to  retire  from  the  world  if  Au- 
gustine paid  him  a  visit.  It  is  difficult  to 
say  whether  this  was  a  pious  stratagem  of 
the  Hipponenses  or  not;  but,  as  the  Church 
of  Hippo  had  a  bishop  living,  and  there 
seemed  so  excellent  a  prospect  of  securing 
a  convert,  Augustine  indiscreetly  set  out  for 
Hippo.  The  story  told  by  Possidius,  Au- 
gustine's pupil  and  biographer  (for  the  lat- 
ter period  of  his  life),  introduces  us  at  once 
into  the  simple  church  life  of  the  early 
centuries.  One  day,  whilst  Augustine  was 
listening  to  the  sermon  of  Bishop  Valerius, 
that  prelate  seized  the  opportunity  to  re- 
mind his  congregation  that  he  was  getting 


222  St.  Augustine 

old,  and  needed  a  priest  to  share  his  work.1 
There  was  immediately  a  loud  demand  for 
Augustine.  He  begged  and  protested  and 
wept,  but  to  no  purpose.  The  people  were 
not  accustomed  to  resistance  in  such  mat- 
ters, and  they  certainly  never  yielded  to  it. 
Augustine  had  to  consent. 

The  reader  who  is  unfamiliar  with  the 
ways  of  the  early  Church  may  have  some 
difficulty  in  picturing  such  a  scene,  so  quiet 
and  submissive  is  the  modern  congregation 
to  its  pastors.  It  is  true  that  the  people  are 
still  consulted  as  to  the  quality  of  those 
who  are  to  be  ordained,  but  few  are  so  rude 
as  to  take  the  prelate  at  his  word  and  an- 
swer the  questions  he  puts  from  the  altar; 
the  wiser  and  more  reverent  liturgy  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  directs  the  putting  of 
the  questions  to  the  people  in  Latin.    In  the 

1  Hatzfeld  (St.  Augustine),  with  the  usual  license  of  the  hagio- 
grapher,  graphically  describes  how  the  people  dragged  him  to  ,the 
bishop  when  they  learned  he  was  in  town.  The  story  of  Possidius 
is  interesting  enough,  without  this  kind  of  adornment.  It  is  not  un- 
like Villemain's  statement  that  Symmachus  sent  for  Augustine  at 
Rome  when  he  had  to  choose  a  teacher  for  the  Milanese;  or  the  Due 
de  Broglie's  discovery  that  Augustine  helped  to  guard  Ambrose  in  the 
church  at  Milan.  Another  prominent  hagiographer  depicts  Augus- 
tine's "  amazement  "  when  the  people  demanded  his  ordination. 


Return  to  Africa  223 

fourth  century  the  proceedings  were  less 
stately.  The  great  preacher  was  encouraged 
by  rounds  of  applause  at  the  end  of  his  well- 
turned  periods.  The  less  gifted  preacher 
was  liable  to  be  reminded  of  the  progress  of 
the  water-clock.  Augustine  tells  a  story 
(Ep.  71)  of  a  bishop  who,  having  preten- 
sions to  learning,  quoted  Jerome's  transla- 
tion of  Jonas  iv.,  6  in  his  sermon.  The 
people  missed  the  familiar  ''gourd"  (for 
which  Jerome  had  substituted  "ivy"),  and 
protested  at  once.  After  some  altercation 
the  bishop  appealed  to  the  Jews,  who  ma- 
liciously sided  with  the  people,  and  the 
poor  bishop  had  to  retract.1  We  shall  see 
many  instances  of  this  lively  interest  of  the 
early  Christians  in  the  affairs  of  their  Church. 
There  was  no  "real  presence"  to  restrain 
their  expressions,  nor  law  against  "brawl- 
ing." When  Augustine  relates  that  his 
mother  went  to  church  every  day,  he  is 
careful  to  add  that  she  did  not  go  for  the 

1  Of  another  man,  who  complained  to  Jerome  of  the  change  he  had 
made,  the  saintly  cynic  said:  "  The  fellow  was  afraid  he  would  have 
nothing  to  take  a  drink  from  on  the  sly,  if  ivy  grew  instead  of  his 
gourds." 


224  St.  Augustine 

purpose  of  gossiping.  Jerome  says  that  the 
church  was  only  second  to  the  doctor's  shop 
as  a  resort  for  gossips  at  Rome. 

Augustine  claimed  some  time  for  recollec- 
tion and  preparation  for  his  new  office.  He 
was  as  sincerely  distressed  as  Ambrose  had 
been  by  the  choice,  but  did  not  imitate  his 
desperate  efforts  to  escape.  After  a  few 
months'  preparation  he  seems  to  have  as- 
sumed the  priestly  order,  and  commenced 
his  new  duties  about  Easter,  391. 


Chapter    IX 
The  Bishop  of  Hippo 

LJIPPO— "Royal  Hippo," as  it  was  called, 
A  *  to  distinguish  it  from  Hippo  Zarytus 
(Bizerta)  —  was  an  interesting  little  town  in 
the  days  when  Augustine  went  to  reside 
there.  Its  title  recalled  the  slender  glories 
of  the  ancient  kings  of  Numidia,  who  found 
it  an  agreeable  winter  residence.  Under 
the  Romans  it  had  grown  into  a  flourishing 
seaport,  the  most  important  on  the  north- 
western coast  after  Carthage.  Connected 
with  all  parts  of  Numidia  and  the  other  pro- 
vinces by  a  chain  of  Roman  roads,  it  had 
become  the  chief  outlet  for  African  produce 
and  an  important  gate  into  Africa  for  the 
Romans.  When  the  Vandals  swept  over 
the  land,  Hippo  and  Carthage  alone  with- 
stood them  for  any  length  of  time,  Hippo 

keeping  them  at  bay  for  fourteen  months. 

15 

225 


226  St.  Augustine 

It  has  shared  the  utter  desolation  that  has 
fallen  upon  North-western  Africa  in  the  train 
of  the  Arab  conquest.  To-day  it  is  a  form- 
less mound  of  ruins,  over  which  nature  has 
spread  a  kindly  veil  of  vegetation.  But  one 
of  Hippo's  glories  still  lives  in  the  midst  of 
this  desolation.  On  Fridays  the  neighbour- 
ing Arabs  gather  at  a  certain  spot  amongst 
the  ruins  to  sacrifice  birds,  and  fire  their 
rifles,  and  offer  other  uncouth  tokens  of  an 
unusual  veneration.  And  when  you  ask 
them  the  story  which  lies  at  the  root  of 
their  strange  tradition,  they  can  only  tell 
you  vaguely  that  once  a  great  "  Roumi " 
(Christian)  dwelt  in  that  spot. 

Hippo  was  a  colonia  in  the  Afro-Roman 
Empire.  It  was  situated  about  a  mile  from 
what  is  now  called  Bona,  on  one  of  the 
lower  plains  of  Numidia,  between  the  rivers 
which  the  Arabs  call  the  Seybouse  and  the 
Abou-gemma.  The  rivers  formed  its  north- 
ern and  southern  fortifications,  whilst  stout 
walls  drawn  from  river  to  river  protected  it 
on  the  east  and  west.  The  Romans  seem 
to  have  deepened  the  channel  of  the  Sey- 


The  Bishop  of  Hippo  227 

bouse  from  the  town  to  the  sea  —  a  distance 
of  about  a  mile  —  and  the  shipping  moored 
at  the  quays  on  the  south  of  the  town.  To 
the  east  was  the  broad  blue  expanse  of  the 
Mediterranean,  whilst  in  the  rear  of  the 
town  the  horizon  was  closed  by  a  series  of 
luxuriantly  clothed  hills.  The  space  en- 
closed by  the  walls  and  rivers  was  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  acres,  but  a  large  part 
of  it  was  probably  taken  up  with  gardens. 
It  was,  however,  pleasantly  dominated  by 
a  softly  rounded  hill  almost  in  the  middle 
of  the  town,  which  was  crowned  by  the 
citadel.  At  the  north-east  corner  was  a 
fine  Roman  bridge  over  the  river,  which 
still  survives,  and  the  castle,  or  fortress,  of 
the  military. 

But  though  the  town  had  probably  a  pop- 
ulation of  between  thirty  thousand  and 
forty  thousand  inhabitants,  it  was  a  poor, 
ignorant,  and  scanty  congregation  that  had 
thus  secured  the  great  gifts  and  greater 
promise  of  Augustine.  The  pagans  were 
evidently  in  the  majority  there  in  the  closing 
years  of  the  fourth  century,  if  not  at  the 


228  St.  Augustine 

close  of  Augustine's  career.  We  cannot 
find  that  the  Catholics  — the  name  was  al- 
ready in  use  —  had  more  than  one  basilica 
in  the  town.  The  Donatist  Schismatics  had 
another,  if  not  more  than  one.  The  re- 
mainder of  the  townsfolk  were  either  pa- 
gans or  Manicheans;  and  as  the  Manicheans 
were  a  somewhat  select  and  cultured  body 
the  vast  majority  of  the  people  must  have 
still  followed  the  religion  of  their  fathers. 
There  cannot  have  been  more  than  a  few 
hundred  worshippers  in  the  ' '  basilica  pacis, " 
where  the  Catholic  bishop,  Valerius,  was 
the  sole  ministering  priest;  and  these  must 
have  belonged  mainly,  as  we  may  infer 
from  Augustine's  sermons,  to  the  unedu- 
cated class.  Fishermen,  labourers  from  the 
quays  and  from  the  outlying  estates,  and 
slaves,  must  have  made  up  the  bulk  of  the 
congregation.  Indeed,  when  Augustine  had 
protested,  with  tears,  against  his  ordination, 
many  thought,  says  Possidius,  that  he  felt 
the  littleness  and  poverty  of  the  position 
they  offered  him.  We  may  be  sure  there 
was  no  such  thought  in  Augustine's  mind. 


The  Bishop  of  Hippo  229 

One  human  feeling  we  do  seem  to  detect  in 
his  reluctance:  he  admits  somewhere  that 
the  prospect  of  the  violence  of  the  Donatists 
counted  for  something  in  his  distress.  That 
was  a  pardonable  feeling,  as  will  be  appar- 
ent later  on.  But  his  resistance  would  un- 
doubtedly have  been  greater  if  the  See  of 
Carthage  had  been  offered  to  him.  And 
when  he  did  eventually  submit  to  ordina- 
tion, it  was  with  the  one  thought  that  he 
was  entering  upon  a  sacred  duty. 

Bishop  Valerius  was  a  Greek,  and  an  old 
man.  His  knowledge  of  Latin  had  always 
been  defective,  and  it  was  with  some  relief 
that  he  handed  over  his  chief  functions  to 
Augustine.  Brother  bishops  were  scandal- 
ised, and  Valerius  had  to  invoke  the  cus- 
tom of  the  Eastern  Church  in  support  of 
his  action.  In  the  West  a  priest  was  never 
permitted  to  preach  in  the  presence  of  his 
bishop;  and  the  latter  always  reserved  for 
himself  the  preparation  of  the  "compe- 
tents"  and  their  baptism.  1  have  said  that 
the  priest  was  only  a  kind  of  curate  to 
his  bishop.     It  must  be  understood  that  he 


230  St.  Augustine 

was,  as  a  rule,  only  intrusted  with  the  du- 
ties of  what  we  would  consider  a  very  mi- 
nor curacy.  The  number  of  Christians  was 
so  small  that  the  bishop  usually  found  it 
possible  to  do  all  the  preaching  and  bap- 
tising in  his  parceda.1  Hence,  although  the 
"  parish  "  sometimes  had  an  ample  territory 
—  that  of  Hippo  extending  for  some  forty 
miles — it  rarely  numbered  very  many  souls, 
and  it  is  entirely  misleading  to  give  the 
number  of  African  bishops  as  an  indication  of 
the  Christian  population.2  There  were  prob- 
ably about  five  hundred  Catholic  bishops  in 
the  diocese  of  Africa  at  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century.  Though  they  murmured  at  the 
concessions  of  Valerius  at  first,  they  began 
to  imitate  him  when  they  saw  the  success 
of  the  change;  and  the  Eastern  custom  was 
finally  adopted  throughout  the  West. 

1  The  word  "  diocese  "  was  then  applied  to  a  large  division  of  the 
Empire,  such  as  North-west  Africa. 

2  For  instance,  one  is  impressed  at  first  by  the  statement  that  there 
were  748  bishops  (Donatist  and  Catholic)  at  the  great  conference  at 
Carthage  in  41 1.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  cannot  find  that  there 
were  more  than  some  twenty  or  thirty  missions  in  Augustine's  own 
parcecia  (and  this  after  the  "conversion"  of  the  Donatists)  at  the 
close  of  his  career. 


The  Bishop  of  Hippo  231 

Augustine's  first  care  after  his  removal 
to  Hippo  was  to  found  a  new  monastery. 
Valerius  gave  him  a  garden  which  was  at- 
tached to  the  church,  and  here  he  built  his 
monastery.  Alypius  and  Evodius  seem  to 
have  joined  him,  and  a  number  of  others 
were  admitted  into  the  community.  There 
are  indications  that  Augustine  made  the 
mistake  of  admitting  youths  at  an  immature 
age;  curiously  enough,  the  only  one  of  his 
monks  whom  he  mentions  expressly  as 
having  been  brought  up  in  the  monastery 
"from  his  early  years"  —  a  troublesome 
young  man  of  the  name  of  Antony,  whom 
we  shall  meet  later  — turned  out  a  black 
sheep.  We  shall  have  to  record  a  number 
of  minor  scandals  that  troubled  the  peace 
of  the  community,  but  there  is  no  doubt 
that  the  monastery  at  Hippo  rendered  in- 
valuable service  to  the  African  Church.  No 
less  than  ten  of  its  most  zealous  bishops 
were  taken  from  Augustine's  community. 
Other  bishops  were  moved  to  build  semin- 
aries of  this  kind,  and  thus  a  more  spiritual 
body  of  men  were  secured  for  the  ministry. 


232  St.  Augustine 

We  shall  presently  find  Augustine  founding 
a  seminary,  properly  so  called;  but  until 
that  date  the  supply  of  priests  and  bishops 
was  precarious. 

But  when  Possidius  says  that  from  the 
day  of  Augustine's  ordination  ''the  African 
Church  began  to  lift  up  its  head/'  he  is 
regarding  his  master  and  friend  in  the  char- 
acter of  a  controversialist.  Augustine  flung 
himself  at  once  into  the  work  of  proselytis- 
ing. Hitherto  the  Catholics  had  lived  on 
sufferance  at  Hippo,  and  for  many  years  to 
come  the  civic  officials  slighted  the  strug- 
gling community.  Augustine  quickly  al- 
tered the  position  of  the  Catholics.  His 
earlier  sermons  show  some  sign  of  prepara- 
tion and  rhetorical  finish,  though  he  soon 
ceased  to  pay  any  attention  to  their  literary 
quality.  But  he  soon  began  to  exhibit  the 
two  gifts  which  rendered  such  remarkable 
service  to  the  Church  of  Africa:  his  power 
as  a  debater  and  as  a  controversial  writer. 
In  the  year  of  his  ordination  he  wrote  a  new 
work  against  the  Manicheans.  The  De 
Militate  Credendi  is  a  carefully-written,  con- 


The  Bishop  of  Hippo  233 

structive  treatise,  and  it  is  marked  by  a 
moderation  of  feeling  and  expression  which 
Augustine's  ardent  temperament  rarely  per- 
mits. It  is  interesting,  chiefly,  for  its  indi- 
cation that  his  views  as  to  faith  and  reason 
are  rapidly  developing  in  the  direction  of 
his  famous  fides  prcecedit  intellectum.  The 
fallacy  of  it  is  the  familiar  error  of  exaggerat- 
ing the  function  of  the  moral  dispositions 
connected  with  the  act  of  belief,  and  attenu- 
ating the  moral  duty,  or  the  common-sense 
duty,  of  weighing  the  immediate  authority 
for  the  propositions  which  claim  the  al- 
legiance of  the  mind.  Augustine's  develop- 
ment on  the  question  of  faith  and  reason 
was  uneven.  He  had  a  number  of  maxims 
instead  of  one  consistent  principle.  When 
he  is  making  a  rational  criticism  of  the 
Manichean  dogmas,  as  in  his  Contra  Episto- 
olam  Manichcei,  he  triumphantly  demands 
the  proof  of  their  cosmic  assertions.  When, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  is  urging  the  accept- 
ance of  Christian  teaching,  he  says:  "Let 
us  have  no  disputing;  the  will  of  God  re- 
quires faith,  not    questions."     This  habit 


234  St.  Augustine 

of  mind  is  already  forming  in  the  treatise1 
On  the  Usefulness  of  Faith,  which  is  an 
attempt  to  disarm  the  rationalist  inquirer, 
addressed  to  a  Manichean  friend.  It  was 
quickly  followed  by  the  De  Duabus  Ani- 
mabus,  a  direct  attack  on  the  Manichean 
doctrine  of  the  two  souls.  In  this  Augus- 
tine is  unanswerable,  and  he  is  still  tem- 
perate in  his  expressions. 

In  the  following  year  Augustine  com- 
menced his  long  and  interesting  career  as  a 
public  debater.  The  Manichean  religion,  so 
philosophic  in  form,  had  made  considerable 
progress  amongst  educated  people,  who 
looked  with  some  disdain  on  both  camps  of 
Christians  —  the  Donatists  and  the  Catho- 
lics.2 At  Hippo  they  had  a  bishop  named 
Fortunatus,  who  had  hitherto,  it  seems,  been 

1  Sermon  318,  where  he  is  introducing  the  relics  of  St.  Stephen, 
and  some  cautious  person  wants  to  be  sure  they  are  the  remains  of 
that  martyr. 

s  It  may  be  useful  to  anticipate  the  fuller  treatment  of  the  schism  to 
the  extent  of  giving  a  definition.  The  Donatists  were  the  followers 
of  Donatus,  who  had  separated  from  his  fellow-Christians  because  they 
took,  as  he  thought,  a  laxer  view  of  certain  defaulters  during  the  last 
persecution.  Half  the  Christians  of  Africa  were  Donatists  ;  but  as 
their  opponents  claimed  to  be  in  communion  with  the  rest  of  the 
Christian  world,  they  called  themselves  the  "  Catholics." 


The  Bishop  of  Hippo  235 

master  of  the  field.  That  did  not  imply  a 
very  great  mental  superiority  in  a  town 
which,  Augustine  says  somewhere,  could 
not  boast  the  possession  of  a  single  copy  of 
Cicero.  However,  it  soon  became  appar- 
ent that  Augustine  was  a  match  for  the 
Manichee,  and  the  Christians  hastened  to 
arrange  a  duel.  Both  Donatists  and  Catho- 
lics pressed  Augustine  to  meet  him,  and  he 
consented.  They  then  approached  Fortu- 
natus,  who  hesitated  for  some  time,— Pos- 
sidius  says  he  had  known  Augustine  at 
Carthage,  and  did  not  love  the  temper  of 
his  weapons, —  but  consented  at  length,  and 
the  preliminaries  were  settled. 

The  contest  was  held  in  September,  392, 
in  the  baths  of  Sosius.  A  crowd  of  students 
and  worshippers  of  all  three  parties  gathered 
in  the  hall.  The  public  notaries  were  sum- 
moned, and  the  dialectical  battle  raged  all 
day.  It  was  renewed  on  the  following  day, 
and  Augustine  gained  an  undeniable  victory.1 


1  But  he  had  virtually  to  retract  his  earlier  attack  on  "  the  morals  of 
the  Manichees,"  admitting  that  he  knew  no  evil  of  them.  However, 
see  a  later  development  in  chap.  xvi. 


236  St.  Augustine 


Intellectually,  Fortunatus  was  immensely 
inferior  to  Augustine.  We  still  have  the 
shorthand  report  of  the  debate,  and  can  fol- 
low the  feeble  and  shifty  efforts  of  the  Man- 
ichee  to  parry  Augustine's  criticism.  In  the 
end  he  completely  broke  down,  and  said 
that  he  would  have  to  consult  the  more 
learned  defenders  of  his  belief  on  the  points 
Augustine  had  raised.  It  is  of  some  interest 
to  notice  that  the  chief  of  these  points  is  the 
one  which  young  Nebridius  had  fruitlessly 
urged  on  Augustine  in  his  own  Manichean 
days.  Fortunatus  set  out  immediately  on 
his  search  for  a  more  valid  defence.  He 
never  returned  to  Hippo.  It  was  a  severe 
blow  for  the  Manicheans,  who  began  to  di- 
minish in  Hippo  from  that  day. 

The  rejoicing  of  the  Donatists  was,  how- 
ever, very  shortly  arrested.  Augustine  soon 
adopted  the  orthodox  view  of  the  schism, 
and  turned  his  weapons  upon  it.  His  first 
anti-Donatist  document  was  a  model  of 
brotherly  litigation  with  his  "separated 
brethren. "  It  is  a  letter  to  a  Donatist  bishop, 
Maximinus,  written  in  an  admirably  temper- 


The  Bishop  of  Hippo  237 

ate  and  reasonable  spirit.  But  it  was  not 
long  before  he  began  to  taste  a  little  of  the 
bitterness  of  the  controversy.  He  wrote  a 
kind  of  ballad,  putting  the  Catholic  points 
against  the  schismatics  in  popular  and  strong 
phraseology.  It  runs  over  the  history  of 
the  struggle,  and  repeats  the  essence  of  the 
Catholic  charge  every  few  lines  by  a  re- 
frain which  rhymes  rebapti^are  with  altare 
contra  altare.  Probably  the  streets  of 
Hippo  had  rung  with  such  ballads  often 
enough  before.  It  is  a  wretched  piece  of 
doggerel,  with  no  literary  pretension  what- 
ever. But  if  the  irritation  of  your  adversary 
is  a  point  in  controversy,  it  must  have  been 
effective.  It  was  followed  by  a  work  On 
the  Letter  of  Donatus,  which  we  no  longer 
have. 

But  Augustine  was  not  the  man  to  be  de- 
terred by  popularity  from  sternly  denouncing 
the  shortcomings  of  his  own  congregation. 
He  is  as  earnest  and  uncompromising  in  his 
basilica  as  when  he  faces  a  heretic  or  schis- 
matic. Perhaps  the  best  illustration  of  his 
earnestness   and   power  as  a  preacher   is 


238  St.  Augustine 

found  in  his  suppression  of  the  Icetitice,  or 
feasts  in  honour  of  the  martyrs,  which  have 
been  mentioned  previously.  The  permission 
to  hold  these  feasts  over  the  tombs  of  the 
martyrs  was  one  of  the  most  unfortunate 
concessions  that  the  bishops  had  made  in 
their  eagerness  to  secure  nominal  converts. 
There  were,  assuredly,  many  Christians  who 
took  a  purely  religious  view  of  the  celebra- 
tion, as  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  Monica. 
But  the  abuse  of  the  custom  was  undeniably 
grave  and  widespread.  The  churches  were 
thronged  all  day  with  men  and  women  who 
emptied  their  bottles  — and  those  of  sober 
folk  like  Monica  —  recklessly.1  That  the 
clergy  were  far  from  uniformly  opposed  to 
the  custom  is  clear  from  a  canon  of  the 
Council  of  Hippo  (a  General  Council  of  the 
African  Church,  held  in  393),  which  forbade 
the  bishops  and  priests  to  take  part  in  the 
festivals.     Moreover,  the  custom  was  ex- 

'An  effort  is  made  by  some  ecclesiastical  writers  to  transfer  the 
orgies  from  the  churches  proper  to  adjacent  buildings  where  the  mar- 
tyrs' bodies  were  kept.  Not  only  were  these  memorice  martyrum 
real  chapels,  but  both  Ambrose  and  Augustine  make  it  perfectly  clear 
that  the  ordinary  basilica  was  given  up  to  the  people. 


The  Bishop  of  Hippo  239 

tending  to  other  festive  occasions,  such  as 
the  funerals  of  the  wealthy.  St.  Paulinus  of 
Nola  writes  approvingly  of  the  giving  of 
such  an  epulum  sacrum  at  Rome.1 

The  custom  had  been  suppressed  at  Milan 
and  other  places,  but  the  Africans  clung  to 
it  with  great  obstinacy.  However,  in  395, 
Augustine  determined  to  make  a  strong  ef- 
fort to  break  the  tradition.  About  the  be- 
ginning of  Lent  occurred  the  feast  of  St. 
Leontius,  the  patron  of  Hippo,  whose  anni- 
versary was  always  celebrated  with  great 
Bacchic  fervour  both  at  the  Catholic  and  the 
Donatist  basilica.  A  few  days  before  the 
feast  Augustine  opened  his  campaign  with  an 
eloquent  sermon  on  the  viciousness  of  the 
custom.  There  were  few  people  present, 
but  these  spread  a  report  of  the  sermon,  and 
a  large  number  came  to  hear  him  on  the 

1  Old  St.  Peter's  witnessed  sights  hardly  less  curious  than  its  suc- 
cessor witnesses  to-day.  Sacred  banquets  were  often  held  in  it,  and 
Jerome  gives  many  another  profane  spectacle.  He  tells  in  one  letter  of 
a  wealthy  dame  who  ran  down  the  long  line  of  Christian  mendicants 
with  her  gifts,  and  who,  when  an  enterprising  old  lady  had  doubled 
back  to  get  a  second  coin,  promptly  felled  her  with  a  blow.  The 
murderous  conflict  which  accompanied  the  papal  election  in  366,  when 
one  hundred  and  thirty  corpses  were  left  on  the  floor  of  one  basilica, 
occurred  elsewhere. 


240  St.  Augustine 

following  day,  when  he  again  vigorously 
denounced  the  practice.  His  hearers  wept, 
and  Augustine  himself  was  moved  to  tears, 
as  he  wrote  afterwards  to  Alypius.  How- 
ever, he  was  told  that  there  was  still  a 
strong  group  of  obstinate  feasters,  who  were 
resolved  to  hold  the  celebration  as  usual. 
On  the  morning  of  the  feast  he  came  to  the 
basilica  with  a  carefully  prepared  denuncia- 
tion of  the  custom,  and  a  resolve  to  "shake 
his  garments  of  them  and  abandon  them  "  if 
they  continued  their  opposition.  Fortun- 
ately, the  leaders  of  the  obstinate  party 
came  to  discuss  the  matter  with  him,  and 
were  persuaded  to  desist.  There  was  great 
rejoicing,  of  a  purely  religious  order,  in  the 
basilica  all  that  day.  The  prepared  oration 
was  set  aside,  and  Augustine  gave  them  an 
impromptu  address,  in  which  he  naTvely  ex- 
plains how  these  festivals  were  a  concession 
to  the  early  "converts"  from  paganism; 
and  he  has  also  to  explain  away  the  evil  ex- 
ample of  the  Church  of  Rome.  And  when 
the  sound  of  rejoicing  comes  from  the  Don- 
atist  basilica  down  the  street,  he  points  out 


The  Bishop  of  Hippo  241 

to  his  sorely  tempted  people  how  far  super- 
ior is  their  spiritual  celebration.  They  re- 
mained all  day  singing  hymns  and  psalms  in 
the  church,  and  the  agapce  were  never  again 
celebrated  at  Hippo.  But  Augustine  had 
to  contend  frequently  afterwards  against  the 
practice  in  other  parts  of  Africa.  In  Sermon 
311  he  speaks  of  the  people's  dancing  and 
singing  all  night  in  the  chapel  of  St.  Cyprian 
at  Carthage.  In  another  of  his  sermons  he 
speaks  of  having  incurred,  probably  at  Car- 
thage, great  personal  risk  for  his  denuncia- 
tion of  the  popular  festivals. 

About  this  time,  also,  Augustine  wrote  the 
work  On  Free  Will,  which  proved  such  a 
treasure  to  his  Pelagian  opponents  in  later 
years.  The  first  book  had  been  written  at 
Rome,  and  consisted  of  a  series  of  conversa- 
tions with  Evodius.  In  the  early  years  of 
his  Christian  development  Augustine  was 
constantly  recurring  to  the  question  of  evil. 
There  was  not  a  shade  of  mystery  in  it  after 
he  had  read  the  Neo-Platonists,  and  he  was 
ever  eager  to  communicate  his  pleasant  view 
of  life.    The  work  On  Free  Will  is  another 


242  St.  Augustine 

effort  to  deal  with  it  on  the  same  lines  as  his 
previous  works.  Moral  evil  comes  from 
man  ;  what  we  call  physical  evil  is  not  evil 
at  all.  The  sufferings  of  human  beings  are 
a  just  punishment  for  sin.  The  sufferings 
of  children  cannot  be  rightly  judged,  since 
we  do  not  know  what  God  has  prepared  for 
them  hereafter;  in  his  Retractations  Augus- 
tine had  to  express  regret  that  he  had  spoken 
with  some  hesitation  of  the  damnation  of 
unbaptised  infants.  The  sufferings  of  ani- 
mals are  a  necessary  part  of  the  beautiful 
machinery  of  the  universe;  M.  Nourisson  is 
driven  to  qualify  his  remarks  on  this  point 
as  "des  mots  vides  de  sens,  ou  meme  des 
sophismes  pernicieux."  And  when  Evodius 
asks  why  God  gave  free  will,  since  it  is  the 
source  of  half  the  evil  of  the  universe,  Au- 
gustine is  no  less  optimistic.  The  universe 
would  have  been  sadly  imperfect  without 
the  presence  of  free  will.  In  a  word, 
there  is  no  mystery  whatever  about  the 
world.  It  reflects  the  wisdom  and  the 
love  of  God  on  every  feature.  It  is  just 
such    a    world    as  we    should    expect   to 


The  Bishop  of  Hippo  243 

find  on  the  Christian  theory  of  the  divine 
nature. 

In  thus  basing  his  argument  so  largely  on 
free  will,  Augustine  was  undoubtedly  run- 
ning counter  to  the  position  he  was  to  take  up 
in  later  years.  It  was  fortunate  for  him  that 
he  had  completed  his  task  of  explaining 
moral  evil  to  the  Manicheans  before  he  be- 
gan to  reduce  the  human  will  to  an  automa- 
ton in  his  opposition  to  the  Pelagians.  In 
these  earlier  years  "  grace  "  is  hardly  noticed 
in  his  writings,  and  then  is  only  conceived 
vaguely  as  an  additional  force,  a  kind  of 
moral  luxury.  The  human  will  is  the 
central  fact  of  the  moral  order.  Augustine's 
earlier  works  against  the  Manicheans  would 
have  been  impossible  if  he  had  then  held 
the  theory  of  grace  which  he  adopted  later. 
The  Pelagians  appealed  particularly  to  this 
work  On  Free  Will  to  prove  his  inconsist- 
ency, and  they  were  certainly  justified.  It 
is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  later  idea  of 
grace  was  developed  only  under  the  pressure 
of  the  Pelagians.  We  can  trace  its  growth 
before  the  appearance  of  Pelagius.     But  we 


244  St.  Augustine 

cannot  grant  Augustine  that  the  later  thought 
is  quite  in  harmony  with  the  earlier.  The 
theology  and  ethics  of  the  De  Liber o  Arbitrio, 
apart  from  its  optimist  excesses,  would  be 
accepted  by  most  of  the  liberal  theolo- 
gians of  our  day  —  by  men  who  shrink  in 
pity  from  the  theories  which  Augustine  held 
twenty  years  afterwards. 

Thus,  between  writing  and  preaching,  Au- 
gustine was  rapidly  winning  a  high  reputa- 
tion throughout  Africa.  In  393  the  General 
Council  of  the  African  bishops  had  been  held 
at  Hippo,  and  Augustine  had  been  charged 
with  the  duty  of  preaching  a  special  sermon 
before  the  assembled  bishops.  It  became 
necessary  once  more  for  him  to  take  pre- 
cautions whenever  he  left  his  town.  There 
was,  in  fact,  a  twofold  reason  for  discretion. 
On  the  one  hand  the  Donatists  were  greatly 
embittered  against  him,  and  to  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  roving  fanatics  who  conducted 
the  physical  side  of  the  controversy  for  that 
sect  would  probably  mean  death.  It  is 
said  that  before  long  the  bishops  of  the 
sect  declared  that  the  man  who  killed  Au- 


The  Bishop  of  Hippo  245 

gustine  would  gain  a  plenary  indulgence  of 
his  sins.  That  is  quite  in  keeping  with 
what  we  know  of  the  religious  quarrels  of 
the  day.  At  all  events,  it  would  not  be 
pleasant,  even  if  he  escaped  with  a  copious 
draught  of  vinegar  and  salt-water,  or  some 
similar  experience  of  the  controversy.  On 
the  other  hand,  many  towns  were  eager 
to  secure  him  for  their  bishop.  He  had 
again  to  move  abroad  with  the  forethought 
of  a  debtor  at  large.  His  fine  theory  of 
free  will  would  count  for  little  if  he  fell 
into  the  hands  of  any  congregation  that 
needed  a  bishop.  On  one  occasion,  indeed, 
some  enterprising  parcecia  seems  to  have 
sent  a  few  of  its  members  to  Hippo  for  the 
purpose  of  kidnapping  him,  for  we  find  that 
Valerius  was  obliged  to  conceal  him  for  a 
time. 

However,  the  bishop  was  forced  at  length 
to  attach  him  to  his  church  by  a  firm,  if 
somewhat  irregular,  bond.  At  that  time  a 
canon  of  the  Council  of  Nicasa  forbade  a 
bishop  to  have  a  coadjutor,  but  the  African 
bishops  do  not  seem  to  have  been  learned 


246  St.  Augustine 

in  the  canon  law.  Valerius,  therefore,  had 
Augustine  ordained  bishop.  Towards  the 
close  of  395  the  Primate,  or  Senex,  as  he  was 
then  called,  of  Numidia,  Megalius,  Bishop 
of  Calama,  came  to  Hippo  with  a  number 
of  other  bishops,  and  Valerius  asked  him 
to  perform  the  ordination.  A  curious  in- 
cident arose  which  gave  Augustine  some 
trouble  in  later  years.  Megalius  refused  at 
first  to  ordain  him  on  account  of  some  cal- 
umny that  was  in  circulation  about  him. 
It  seems  {Contra  Cresconiam,  iii.,  92;  iv., 
79)  that  the  Donatists  accused  him  of  hav- 
ing given  a  philtre  to  a  woman  of  Hippo. 
The  story  was,  of  course,  a  ridiculous  in- 
vention of  the  Donatists,  and  Megalius  was 
soon  persuaded  of  that.  But  the  letters  in 
which  he  had  stated  his  grievance  after- 
wards fell  into  the  hands  of  Augustine's 
enemies,  and  were  used  with  much  zeal 
by  the  Donatists  and  Manicheans  for  some 
years.  Megalius  publicly  begged  Augus- 
tine's forgiveness  for  his  hesitation,  and  the 
ordination  took  place  a  little  before  Christ- 
mas.    Possidius  says  that  Augustine  had 


The  Bishop  of  Hippo  247 

a  suspicion  at  the  time  that  the  ordination 
was  irregular,  but  he  was  overborne.  When 
he  became  assured  of  it  afterwards,  he  had 
a  resolution  passed  at  the  Council  of  Car- 
thage, directing  that  the  canons  of  the 
Church  should  be  read  to  every  priest  be- 
fore his  ordination. 

Augustine  was  now  free  to  enlarge  the 
sphere  of  his  work.  The  jealous  Hippo- 
nenses  had  hitherto  rarely  allowed  him  to 
visit  other  towns,  but  now  that  he  was 
secured  to  their  Church  they  gave  him 
greater  liberty.  Possidius  says  that  he 
began  to  preach  frequently  in  neighbour- 
ing towns,  and  to  challenge  Donatist  and 
Manichean  champions  to  debate.  As,  more- 
over, Valerius  died  soon  after  his  ordination, 
he  became  the  sole  bishop,  and  regained 
control  of  his  movements.  But  the  change 
brought  him  a  multitude  of  new  functions, 
many  of  which  had  been  of  little  conse- 
quence under  the  old  bishop.  He  had  to 
remove  from  his  monastery  to  the  episcopal 
house.  One  of  a  bishop's  duties  was  hos- 
pitality, he  said,  and  this  would  be  incon- 


248  St.  Augustine 

sistent  with  the  quiet  life  of  a  monastery. 
He  accordingly  left  the  monastery  in  the 
garden  to  his  associates,  and  removed  to 
the  house  Valerius  had  left  him.  Let  us 
try,  in  a  fresh  chapter,  to  form  a  picture  of 
the  life  of  a  busy  bishop  of  the  fourth 
century. 


Chapter  X 

The  Daily  Task 

Y\T  HEN  we  are  told  that  "  the  whole  of  the 
*  cathedral  clergy  "  consented  to  live 
in  the  bishop's  house  with  Augustine,  we 
must  guard  ourselves  against  large  impres- 
sions. Probably  one  or  two  of  his  fellow- 
monks  joined  Augustine  in  his  new  home, 
though  Alypius  had  already  left  him  to  be- 
come Bishop  of  Thagaste.  In  addition  to 
these,  it  is  hardly  likely  that  he  had  more 
than  one  or  two  deacons.  There  is  no  reason 
for  thinking  that  he  had  any  priests  minis- 
tering under  him  in  Hippo  at  that  time. 
Twenty  years  afterwards  his  little  "  semin- 
ary" included  only  about  a  dozen  priests 
and  deacons,  as  we  know  from  the  sermon 
(355)  in  which  he  discusses  them  before  his 
congregation  when  a  scandal  has  arisen.    In 

395,  and  for  some  years  after,  Augustine 

249 


250  St.  Augustine 

must  have  had  nearly  the  whole  burden  of 
the  ministry  on  his  shoulders.  When  we 
realise  the  magnitude  of  that  burden,  we 
shall  be  in  a  better  position  to  judge  the 
literary  and  controversial  work  of  the  bishop. 
Possidius  gives  us  an  interesting  picture 
of  life  in  the  episcopal  house,  which  he  him- 
self shared  for  many  years.  All  things  were 
held  in  common  — or  were  supposed  to  be; 
for  in  after  years  Augustine  found  that  most 
of  his  subordinates  had  quietly  retained  pos- 
session of  houses,  or  slaves,  or  other  pro- 
perty. Still,  in  the  practical  administration 
of  the  house,  the  right  of  private  property 
was  not  recognised.  All  food  and  clothing 
was  handed  in  to  the  common  store,  and 
distributed  according  to  need.  In  one  let- 
ter Augustine  acknowledges  receiving  a  shirt 
from  a  lady  of  Carthage;  in  another,  a  warm 
cloak.  He  was  careful  to  choose  only  the 
more  common  for  his  own  use,  lest,  he  says, 
people  should  complain  that  his  priestly  of- 
fice brought  him  luxuries  which  neither  his 
family  nor  his  profession  would  have  pro- 
cured for  him.     The  common  table  offered 


The  Daily  Task  251 

little  beyond  bread  and  vegetables;  meat 
was  reserved  for  visitors  and  for  the  sick. 
Yet  he  had  an  Aristotelic  idea  of  moderation 
in  his  virtue.  Wine  was  allowed  to  the  ex- 
tent of  two  or  three  cups  each,  a  fine  of  one 
cup  being  imposed  for  relapse  into  the  Afri- 
can frailty  of  swearing.  Silver  was  admitted 
in  the  matter  of  spoons;  all  other  utensils 
and  vessels  were  of  marble,  wood,  or  earth- 
enware. Augustine  would  have  us  think 
that  he  suffered  from  a  besetting  tendency 
to  excess  at  table.  Bayle,  of  course,  has 
pleasantly  enlarged  on  the  phrase  in  the 
Confessions  (x.,  31),  in  which  he  makes  the 
admission ;  but  Bayle  is  entirely  wrong  in  ap- 
plying it  to  drink  (which  Augustine  expressly 
excludes),  and  it  is  questionable  whether  the 
"confession"  should  be  taken  seriously  at 
all.  Augustine  was  not  the  vigorous  and  ro- 
bust individual  the  passage  would  suggest. 
He  was  slight  of  build  and  short  of  stature, 
and  always  ailing.  He  has  frequently  to 
absent  himself  from  Hippo — much  to  the  con- 
cern of  the  numerous  grumblers  in  his  congre- 
gation— on  account  of  his  health.     We  have 


252  St.  Augustine 

heard  him  complain  of  serious  lung  disorder 
at  Milan.  Later  he  tells  that  he  cannot  en- 
dure the  cold;  and  in  another  letter  he  com- 
plains of  hemorrhoids.  He  must  have  been 
a  man  of  intensely  nervous  and  sympathetic 
temperament.  Frequently  he  seems  only 
to  gather  strength  when  he  has  begun  his 
sermon  or  other  task.  With  such  a  consti- 
tution, worn  down  still  more  by  frequent 
fasts  and  incessant  toil,  Augustine  is  hardly 
likely  to  have  had  serious  trouble  in  con- 
trolling his  appetite. 

The  Eastern  custom  of  reading  the  Scrip- 
ture or  some  religious  work  during  meals 
was  introduced  by  Augustine.  But  he  hit 
upon  a  happy  device  for  the  control  of 
unkind  impulses  on  the  days  when  con- 
versation was  allowed.  He  had  a  couplet 
painted  or  carved  on  the  table,  which  re- 
minded the  diners  continually  that  "who- 
ever loves  to  carp  at  the  lives  of  the  absent 
must  know  that  this  table  is  no  place  for 
him."  One's  character  was  safe  in  Augus- 
tine's presence,  unless,  indeed,  one  had  the 
misfortune  to  be  a  Manichee  or  a  Donatist. 


The  Daily  Task  253 

The  couplet  was  not  a  mere  ornament,  as 
such  things  are  apt  to  become.  Possidius 
tells  how  some  brother  bishops  were  dining 
with  him  on  one  occasion,  and  the  conver- 
sation gradually  wandered  on  to  the  for- 
bidden ground.  Augustine  rose  at  once. 
"Either  let  us  remove  those  words  from 
the  table,"  he  said,  "  or  let  me  retire."  He 
was  equally  rigid  in  his  relations  with  the 
more  dangerous  sex.  He  visited  no  women 
except  widows  and  orphans  who  were  in 
trouble.  No  woman,  not  even  his  sister 
or  his  nieces,  ever  lived  under  his  roof;  and 
it  was  with  difficulty,  and  only  in  the 
presence  of  witnesses,  that  he  ever  saw  a 
woman  at  all.  One  would  like  to  have  had 
his  comments  on  Jerome's  very  different 
conduct,  and  Jerome's  on  his. 

Augustine's  ideal  of  community  life 
brought  him  many  a  troubled  hour.  The 
truth  is,  it  must  be  confessed,  he  was  a 
most  unpractical  man,  and  a  poor  judge  of 
persons.1    The  good  became  better  in  his 

1  Mr.  Kingsley  has  introduced  him  in  Hfpatia  as  endowed  with  a 
sober  and  practical  judgment  which   made   large  amends,    in   that 


254  St.  Augustine 

company, —  I  have  said  that  he  gave  ten 
earnest  bishops  to  the  African  Church,— but 
many  found  their  way  into  his  house  and 
service  who  were  not  good,  and  he  had 
a  poor  eye  for  hypocrisy.  Before  many 
years  we  find  him  much  concerned  about 
one  of  his  monks  and  one  of  his  priests, 
who  accuse  each  other  of  revolting  conduct. 
Augustine  sent  them  to  the  shrine  of  St. 
Felix  of  Nola,  in  Italy,  to  ask  a  miraculous 
decision  in  the  case.  About  the  same  time 
he  has  to  depose  another  priest  in  his 
parcecia  for  flagrant  conduct.  Other  scan- 
dals will  be  found  at  a  later  stage.  For 
many  years  his  theory  of  a  community  of 
goods  seemed  to  work  admirably;  and  as 
Possidius  says  he  kept  no  keys,  and  only 

author's  esteem,  for  his  doctrinal  excesses.  Like  every  other  "  histori- 
cal "  character  in  that  brilliant  work  of  fiction,  Kingsley's  Augustine 
is  quite  untrue  to  life.  Still  one  cannot  help  having  a  feeling  of 
indulgence  for  the  novelist.  His  "purpose"  demanded  that  he 
should  offer  the  reader  an  alternative  to  the  Neo-Platonist  moralists 
he  was  decrying,  and  even  his  subtle  imagination  failed  to  find  the 
material  for  one  in  the  Church  of  Alexandria.  No  doubt  we  should 
not  look  for  history  in  romances;  but  in  this  case  a  German  critic, 
Stephanus  Wolf,  has  recommended  the  characters  for  historical  faith- 
fulness. It  is  not  likely  that  Augustine  ever  saw  Synesius  or  the 
Pentapolis.  The  line  of  division  of  East  and  West  —  a  very  real 
one  —  lay  between  them. 


The  Daily  Task  255 

demanded  an  account  of  the  domestic 
economy  once  a  year,  we  can  well  under- 
stand it.  He  was  awakened  to  suspicion 
by  the  public  scandal  of  one  of  his  priests 
leaving  a  sum  of  money  at  his  death.  Then 
he  held  an  inquiry,  and  found  that  most 
of  his  clerics  paid  little  practical  attention 
to  their  vow,  or,  at  least,  solemn  promise, 
of  poverty.  He  thereupon  rescinded  his 
rule  of  ordaining  no  cleric  who  would  not 
agree  to  live  in  common  at  the  episcopal 
residence;  but  the  culprits  seem  to  have 
promised  amendment,  and  he  renewed  his 
unwise  regulation. 

He  seems  also  to  have  had  not  a  little 
trouble  in  striking  the  mean  between  the 
lofty  feeling  of  detachment  from  the  things 
of  earth  and  the  pressure  of  its  practical 
claims.  There  are  indications  that  his  con- 
gregation and  his  community  frequently 
grumbled  at  his  lack  of  zeal  in  securing 
gifts  and  legacies  for  the  Church.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  poor  bishop  actually  in- 
curred the  reproach  of  avarice  on  more 
than  one  occasion.     Thus  in   405,   when 


256  St.  Augustine 

he  consulted  a  venerable  colleague  as  to 
the  propriety  of  his  decision  in  a  certain 
case,  he  found  that  the  bishop  "  was  greatly 
horrified"  (Ep.  83)  at  the  character  of  his 
proposal.  A  certain  Honoratus,  who  had 
been  a  monk  in  the  monastery  at  Thagaste, 
and  afterwards  a  priest  at  Thiave,  had  died 
intestate  at  the  latter  place.  The  people 
of  Thiave  claimed  his  property  for  their 
church,  but  Augustine  and  Alypius  (now 
Bishop  of  Thagaste)  decided  to  keep  half 
of  it  for  the  Thagaste  monastery.  Augus- 
tine hastily  awarded  the  whole  property 
to  Thiave  when  the  ill-sounding  murmurs 
reached  him.  In  another  case,  early  in  his 
episcopate,  he  seems  to  have  quarrelled  with 
his  congregation  about  some  property  left 
to  the  Church  by  a  deceased  navicularius. 
This  was  an  official  of  the  Roman  world 
who  had  to  ship  the  corn  to  Rome,  and 
was  responsible  for  its  safety  unless  he 
could  prove  (for  which  purpose  three  or 
four  of  the  crew  were  always  put  to  the 
torture)  that  the  accident  to  his  ship  was 
unavoidable.     If  the  Church  accepted  the 


The  Daily  Task  257 

property,  it  would  accept  the  hereditary 
office  and  responsibility,  which  Augustine 
very  rightly  declined  to  do.  On  another 
occasion  a  rich  citizen  of  Hippo,  living  at 
Carthage,  sent  him  the  deeds  of  some 
property,  which  was  to  pass  to  the  Church 
at  his  death.  After  a  few  years  he  sent  his 
son  with  a  humble  request  that  the  tablets 
should  be  given  to  him,  as  the  father  now 
wished  to  leave  the  property  to  his  children. 
The  letter  which  Augustine  wrote  the  man, 
after  returning  the  deeds,  has,  unhappily, 
not  been  preserved.  But  Possidius  tells  us 
that  he  put  a  due  degree  of  warmth  into 
his  "  increpation,"  and  refused  the  offered 
consolation  of  a  gift  of  money.  It  must  be 
understood,  however,  that  Augustine  had 
generally  a  humane  feeling  in  these  matters, 
and  advised  parents  to  provide  for  their 
children  before  they  thought  of  the  Church. 
From  all  this  the  reader  will  have  gath- 
ered that  the  Christian  community,  as  well 
as  the  pagan,  looked  to  the  wealthy  for 
the  support  of  its  pastors.     It  is  by  no 

means   an  agreeable  impression   that  one 

17 


258  St.  Augustine 

receives  ot  Augustine's  congregation  on 
reading  his  letters  and  sermons.  It  is  not 
only  small,  but  it  is  exceedingly  poor  in 
spiritual  quality.  The  sermons  are  con- 
stantly recurring  to  the  coarsest  vices,  and 
are  full  of  complaints  of  empty  benches, 
especially  when  the  pagan  festivals  coincide 
with  the  Christian.  The  letters  complain 
time  after  time  of  grumbling  and  mutiny1 
in  the  congregation.  They  rarely  seem  to 
appreciate  that  they  have  in  their  obscure 
service  the  greatest  genius  in  the  Church. 
To  an  extent,  we  must  trace  this  to  Augus- 
tine's weakness  as  a  preacher.  He  had 
a  few  great  successes, — the  extinction  of 
the  love-feasts,  of  faction-fights,  etc., — but 
we  can  well  understand  that  his  ordinary 
sermons  were  not  likely  to  overcome  the 
attraction  of  the  pagan  carnivals.  They 
are  generally  plain,  solid,  moral  discourses, 
greatly  preoccupied  with  impurity,  drunk- 
enness, and  divination;  or  else  comment- 
aries on  Scripture  which  are  more  ingenious 

1  C/.  Epistle  124,  where  he  speaks  of  his  people  as  being  greatly 
excited  and  "  most  dangerously  scandalised  at  my  absence." 


The  Daily  Task  259 

than  attractive.  They  seem  to  have  lasted 
any  time  between  ten  minutes  and  a  couple 
ot  hours.  Manicheans  and  pagans  would 
come  to  hear  him  occasionally,  but  it  is 
clear  that  he  is  generally  addressing  a  small 
group  of  ignorant  people.  Petrarch  has  de- 
scribed as  "  a  magnificent  and  notable  work  " 
one  ot  his  largest  productions  (the  Com- 
mentary on  the  Psalms),  which  consists  of 
a  couple  of  hundred  sermons,  delivered, 
for  the  most  part,  to  the  people  of  Hippo. 
There  must  have  been  few  who  appreciated 
his  "magnificence."  One  of  his  biograph- 
ers affirms  that  the  women  did  not  like  his  f 
sermons.  That  would  be  a  unique  ex- 
perience in  the  history  of  pulpit  eloquence, 
but  the  passage  which  is  quoted  seems  to 
refer  to  one  sermon  only.  It  is  probable, 
however,  that  Augustine  imposed  a  strain 
sometimes  on  the  fidelity  of  the  gentler 
sex.  He  had  a  strong  tinge  of  the  Oriental 
habit  of  depreciating  woman,  as  we  shall 
see  in  noticing  some  of  his  later  works. 
We  can  torm  some  idea  of  the  mental  level 
of  his  audience  when  we  find  him  telling 


260  St.  Augustine 

a  friend  that  he  has  to  address  them  in  bad 
Latin,  saying  ossum  rneum  for  os  meum, 
and  so  on;  they  in  turn  sing  their  hymns 
and  psalms  in  the  same  dialect  (fioriet 
for  efflorebit,  etc.).  Still,  only  a  few  of 
them  speak  Punic.  When  he  quotes  a 
Punic  proverb  at  times,  he  has  to  translate 
it  into  Latin.  That  is  what  we  should 
expect  in  a  busy  Mediterranean  seaport  in 
Roman  Africa.1  He  seems  to  have  pre- 
pared his  sermons  carefully  in  his  earlier 
years.  Later  on,  they  were  taken  down 
by  the  notarii,  as  he  sat  talking  from  his 
chair  in  the  apse  of  the  basilica.  Possidius 
says  many  people  used  to  bring  notaries 
with  them  to  church.  He  preached  very 
frequently  throughout  life,  sometimes  for 
quite  a  number  of  days  in  succession. 

In  the  other  functions  of  the  Church,  ex- 
cept baptism  and  the  preparation  of  the 
"competents,"  Augustine  would  have  the 

1  Yet  such  is  the  equipment  for  their  work  of  some  of  the  writers  on 
Augustine,  that  we  have  one  of  them  (Mr.  C.  H.  Collette)  speaking 
thus  with  the  grave  and  authoritative  tone  of  a  Mommsen;  "  I  have 
not  been  able  to  satisfactorily  account  for  the  fact  that  the  numerous 
sermons  attributed  to  Augustine  are  in  Latin." 


The  Daily  Task  261 

assistance  of  his  clergy.  Mass  was  already 
a  daily  liturgical  function  in  the  African 
churches,  and  there  was  a  service  of  psalms 
and  hymns  which  he  calls  the  vespertina. 
One  of  the  Catholic  hagiographers  has  the 
audacity  to  represent  Augustine  as  a  busy 
father  confessor  after  the  modern  type.  He 
must,  at  all  events,  have  received  a  certain 
number  of  the  confidences  which  then  went 
by  the  name  of  confessions.  From  time  to 
time,  also,  his  church  offered  visitors  the 
curious  spectacle  of  a  public  penitent,  when 
one  of  his  congregation  had  been  notori- 
ously guilty  01  some  graver  crime,  such  as 
murder,  sacrilege,  or  adultery;  though  we 
cannot  think,  after  reading  his  sermons,  that 
the  law  was  applied  strictly  on  the  last 
point. 

Apart,  however,  from  the  greater  sim- 
plicity of  the  services  and  the  noisiness  and 
carelessness  of  the  worshippers,  the  Church 
of  the  early  centuries  had  many  unfamiliar 
scenes  to  offer.  Notably,  there  were  the 
privilege  of  "sanctuary,"  and  the  right  of 
freeing  slaves.    The  lex  asyli  was  greatly 


262  St.  Augustine 

abused  in  the  early  Christian  Church,  as  we 
learn  from  a  decree  of  396,  which  forbids 
monks  and  clerics  to  favour  the  escape  of 
criminals  and  defend  them  with  armed  force 
in  their  churches  against  the  officials.  The 
securing  of  the  privilege  was  one  of  the 
many  narrow-minded  measures  of  the  bish- 
ops of  the  fourth  century,  which  helped  to 
corrupt  the  Church  they  thought  to  serve. 
At  Hippo  there  was  probably  no  violent  or 
strained  use  of  the  privilege,  yet  Augustine's 
conduct  was  marked  by  his  usual  unprac- 
tical optimism  and  want  of  discrimination. 
On  one  occasion,  when  a  parishioner  named 
Fascius  had  fled  to  the  church,  and  the 
angry  officials  chafed  at  the  door,  he  paid 
the  man's  debt  himself  on  condition  that  the 
money  was  to  be  raised  by  public  collection 
if  the  man  failed  to  pay  it  by  a  certain  day. 
On  the  appointed  day  the  man  was,  of 
course,  missing,  and  the  collection  had  to 
be  made  to  cover  the  loss  to  the  church 
funds.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  even  a 
moderate  use  of  the  privilege  fostered  idle- 
ness and  swindling. 


The  Daily  Task  263 

Another  privilege  that  helped  to  increase 
the  congregations  of  the  Christian  churches, 
and  was  equally  questionable  in  its  social 
and  moral  effect,  was  the  manumission  of 
slaves.  Constantine  had  granted  the  privi- 
lege after  his  conversion  ;  but  it  was  not 
extended  to  Africa  until  the  year  401,  when 
a  Council  of  Carthage  begged  the  extension 
from  the  Emperor.  After  that  date  the  manu- 
mission of  a  slave  must  have  been  frequently 
witnessed  at  Hippo.  Augustine  had  no  sen- 
timental objection  to  slavery.  The  light  in 
which  he  regards  that  institution  in  his  De 
Opere  Monachorum  is  little  superior  to  the 
opinions  expressed  by  Praetextatus  and  his 
fellow  pagans  in  the  Saturnalia.  He  fully 
recognises  the  right  of  the  conqueror  to  en- 
slave the  conquered.  However,  he  always 
urged  his  people  to  free  slaves  who  ex- 
pressed a  desire  to  enter  a  monastery, — 
even  the  rapidly  growing  abuses  of  the  mon- 
astic life  did  not  discourage  him  from  this, — 
and  he  probably  always  assisted  with  pleas- 
ure at  a  manumission.  The  slave  was  brought 
to  the  church  by  his  master,  and  the  tablets 


264  St.  Augustine 

of  sale  were  broken  there,  with  some  cere- 
mony and  edifying  talk. 

But  perhaps  the  function  that  occupied 
most  of  his  time  was  the  one  he  discharged 
in  the  episcopal  court.  St.  Paul  had  ex- 
horted the  faithful  not  to  drag  each  other 
before  secular  judges,  but  to  let  their  elders 
adjudicate  between  them.  The  advice  had 
been  largely  followed,  and  the  Christian 
emperors  were  persuaded  to  give  a  formal 
recognition  to  the  judicial  powers  of  the 
bishops.  The  work  now  increased  so  much 
that  Arcadius  had  to  regulate  it  in  398  and 
400.  He  left  the  episcopal  court  a  purely 
voluntary  tribunal,  but  made  its  decisions 
have  a  legal  effect  for  such  as  chose  to  have 
recourse  to  it.  The  civil  courts  of  the  pro- 
vinces were  far  from  being  in  an  ideal  con- 
dition, so  that  non-Christians  as  well  as 
Christians  flocked  to  the  house  of  every  dis- 
tinguished bishop.  The  practice  had  the 
effect  of  causing  a  good  deal  of  friction  be- 
tween civil  and  ecclesiastical  powers  (wit- 
ness the  amiable  relation  of  St.  Cyril  and 
the  prefect  Orestes  at  Alexandria),  but  it  is 


The  Daily  Task  265 

obvious  that  it  tended  to  purify  the  judicial 
system  of  the  Empire  and  to  secure  justice 
for  the  poor.  At  Hippo  there  was,  natur- 
ally, a  vast  quantity  of  this  work  to  be  done. 
Augustine  generally  spent  the  morning  in 
his  court,  "  fasting,"  says  Possidius,  "  some- 
times until  the  dinner  hour  [our  eleven 
o'clock],  and  sometimes  for  the  whole  day." 
He  soon  won  a  reputation  throughout 
Africa  as  an  arbitrator  and  mediator,  and 
petitions  came  to  him  from  all  quarters. 
Debtors,  especially  seem  to  have  claimed 
his  services,  and  his  vague  and  unpractical 
way  of  looking  at  commercial  matters  al- 
ways inclined  him  to  sympathy.  Many 
of  his  letters  are  written  to  plead  the  cause 
of  some  hard-pressed  individual  in  a  re- 
mote part  of  Africa.  Even  pagans  who  had 
brought  the  wrath  of  the  Christian  Em- 
peror upon  their  towns  by  some  attack  on 
the  local  basilica  or  clergy  in  a  festive  mo- 
ment appealed  with  confidence  to  Augus- 
tine. He  always  improves  the  occasion  by 
a  few  shots  at  their  gods  and  goddesses,  but 
their  appeal  to  his  humanity  seems  always 


266  St.  Augustine 

to  have  been  successful.  At  another  time 
we  find  him  gently  expostulating  with  two 
of  his  colleagues  who  are  fighting  for  the 
primacy  of  the  Numidian  province1;  at 
another  he  is  blaming  a  colleague  for  ex- 
communicating a  family  for  the  fault  of  an 
individual  member.  In  another  letter  (247) 
there  is,  for  our  consolation,  a  flash  of  tem- 
per, when  his  effort  at  mediation  seems  to 
miscarry.  He  has  been  chiding  a  certain 
landowner  for  making  his  tenant-farmers 
pay  their  rent  a  second  time  (the  agent  hav- 
ing absconded  with  the  first),  and  the  man 
has  refused  to  call  on  him  during  a  visit  to 
Hippo. 

His  letters  reveal  a  most  varied  activity 
of  a  charitable  kind.  At  one  time  he  writes 
from  Carthage  to  remind  his  clergy  and 
congregation  of  the  custom  of  clothing  the 
poor  of  Hippo.  He  had  an  annual  collec- 
tion of  cast-off  garments  and  distribution 
amongst  the  poorer  members  of  the  com- 

1  It  did  not  occur  to  him  to  settle  matters  by  the  device  which  has 
so  happily  solved  a  modern  difficulty  of  the  kind,  by  which  one  pre- 
late takes  the  title  of  "  Primate  of  Ireland,"  and  the  other  "  Primate 
of  all  Ireland." 


The  Daily  Task  267 

munity;  but  in  the  excitement  of  the  year 
410  the  clergy  had  omitted  the  work.  There 
was  also  a  hospital  built  near  his  church; 
and  there  were  nunneries  which  relieved 
the  monotony  of  life  (as  is  the  custom  in 
those  institutions)  by  quarrel  and  intrigue, 
requiring  Augustine's  intervention.  Even 
the  arrangement  of  marriages  claimed  his 
attention  sometimes,  much  as  he  resented 
the  circumstance.  It  was  not  uncommon  in 
those  days  for  a  dying  parent  to  make  the 
Church  the  guardian  of  his  children.  We 
have  a  series  of  letters  in  which  Augustine 
negotiates  with  a  pagan  who  has  asked  a 
ward  of  the  Church  for  marriage  with  his 
son.  At  another  time  we  find  him  con- 
cerned about  the  ransom  of  some  of  his 
congregation  who  have  been  captured,  ap- 
parently by  the  African  tribesmen.  He  is 
unable  to  collect  sufficient  money  to  pay 
their  ransom,  and  so,  following  the  exam- 
ple of  St.  Ambrose,  he  melts  down  the 
sacred  vessels  of  his  church,  and  sells  the 
metal. 
Yet  amidst  all  these  varied  and  distracting 


268  St.  Augustine 


& 


episcopal  duties,  Augustine  found  time  for 
controversial  work  and  letter-writing,  which 
form  of  themselves  an  extraordinary  monu- 
ment to  his  industry.  His  occupations  at 
Hippo  seem  to  be  of  no  account  whatever. 
His  eye  is  constantly  sweeping  over  the 
African  provinces  in  search  of  a  grievance  to 
remedy,  or  a  prominent  heretic  to  defy. 
Synods  and  councils  innumerable  drag  him 
from  one  end  of  Africa  to  the  other.  Aure- 
lius  of  Carthage,  the  nominal  chief  of  the 
African  Church,  detains  him  at  Carthage 
until  the  murmurs  of  his  congregation  be- 
come intolerable.  Yet  month  after  month, 
and  year  after  year,  fresh  works  issue  in  his 
name,  some  of  them  astounding  in  their 
volume.  From  every  part  of  Africa,  from 
Spain,  Italy,  and  Gaul,  questions  are  sent  to 
him  and  obscure  heresies  denounced.  One 
day  a  man  picks  up  a  small  volume  in  the 
streets  of  Carthage,  treating  of  a  heresy  he 
is  unacquainted  with.  At  once  he  forwards 
it  to  the  great  Augustine  of  Hippo,  and  pre- 
sently he  has  a  work  dealing  with  the  mat- 
ter.    The  heretics  have  to  circulate  their 


The  Daily  Task  269 

books  with  caution  after  a  time,  lest  they  fall 
under  the  eye  of  the  terrible  bishop.  But 
we  may  deal  a  little  later  with  his  works. 
In  the  meantime,  Possidius  tells  us,  he 
sends  out  challenges  right  and  left  to  public 
debate,  though  few  are  eager  to  meet  the 
"Punic  wrangler,"  as  his  rivals  soon  de- 
scribe him.  We  have  seen  how  effectually 
he  crushed  the  Manichean  Bishop  of  Hippo. 
The  Donatist  bishop,  Proculeianus,  was  also 
urgently  invited  to  hold  a  public  debate 
with  him,  but  he  managed  to  evade  it.  A 
few  years  later  he  had  a  debate  with  an- 
other Manichean,  Felix,  in  his  own  church. 
The  acta  are  not  interesting  reading.  Felix 
is  an  incompetent  and  shifty  debater,  and 
Augustine  has  already  made  some  progress 
in  pious  intolerance.  At  the  close  of  the 
first  day's  debate  Augustine  prudently 
handed  the  man  over  to  a  Christian,  who 
was  to  see  that  he  did  not  retire  prema- 
turely from  the  conflict.  After  a  second 
day  of  the  unequal  struggle  Felix  wearily 
renounced  his  heresy.  Augustine  does  not 
improve  in  temper  with  the  advance  of  his 


270  St.  Augustine 

experience  in  debating.  One  of  his  Don- 
atist  adversaries,  Cresconius,  complains  of 
his  "  unbearable  arrogance  "  ;  and  a  courtly 
and  cultured  Arian  bishop,  who  invited  him 
to  cross  swords  in  later  years,  was  forced 
to  tell  him  that  he  "talked  like  a  man  who 
had  the  support  of  the  imperial  laws."  As 
a  rule,  this  seeming  arrogance  was  due  to 
a  purely  religious  intolerance  of  heresy  and 
zeal  for  conversions;  the  irritation  of  defeat 
is  usually  on  the  side  of  his  adversary. 
Sometimes  his  opponent  succeeds  in  hav- 
ing the  debate  without  reporters,— though 
the  presence  of  the  notarii  is  always  Au- 
gustine's first  condition, —  and  then  (as  did 
the  Arian  Count  Pascentius1  after  a  debate 
at  Carthage)  spreads  abroad  a  very  safe 
assertion  that  he  has  defeated  the  great 
dialectician. 

Finally,  we  have  to  consider  the  wonder- 
ful collection  of  letters  which  Augustine  has 
left  us.     It  is  a  commonplace  that  a  man  is 

1  In  this  case  he  was  afterwards  not  entirely  unthankful  for  the 
exclusion  of  the  notarii.  He  says  afterwards  in  a  letter  to  Pascen- 
tius: "  What  reply  1  made  to  that  I  do  not  care  to  remember,  and  I 
trust  you  do  not." 


The  Daily  Task  271 

most  easily  recognised  in  his  letters,  and 
this  could  be  said  of  no  writer  with  greater 
truth  than  of  Augustine.  He  reveals  him- 
self with  singular  completeness  in  his  cor- 
respondence. The  earliest  of  his  letters 
date  from  his  stay  at  Cassiciacum  after  his 
conversion.  From  that  time  we  can  follow 
the  development  of  his  character  and  his 
opinions  almost  by  an  exclusive  study  of 
his  letters.  His  industry  in  answering  cor- 
respondents is  bewildering  when  we  re- 
member his  endless  occupations.  That  a 
Symmachus  can  find  time  to  construct 
brief,  polished  epistles  — after  the  fashion 
of  the  hour  —  is  intelligible  enough,  but 
the  promptness  and  generosity  with  which 
Augustine  meets  every  petty  demand  on 
his  time  are  almost  unparalleled.  Take,  for 
instance,  his  11 8th  letter.    A  young  man1 

*M  .  Poujoulat,  the  chief  biographer  of  Augustine  in  France,  pro- 
tests there  is  no  reason  for  thinking  the  questioner  was  "a  young 
man,"  but  Augustine  calls  him  a  " boni  ingenii  juvenetn"  in  this 
very  letter.  I  notice  the  point  because  it  is  Poujoulat  who  denounces 
Gibbon  for  his  "  profound  ignorance"  and  for  daring  to  write  about 
Augustine  after  having  read  only  the  Confessions  and  the  City  of  God. 
It  is,  however,  true  that  at  least  the  letters  should  be  read  by  one 
who  would  know  Augustine. 


272  St.  Augustine 


fcs 


was  setting  out  from  Africa  for  Athens, 
and,  desiring  to  make  a  favourable  impres- 
sion in  that  city  of  learning,  he  coolly  sends 
Augustine  a  long  list  of  questions,  which 
he  begs  him  to  answer.  Augustine  takes 
the  request  quite  seriously,  though  he 
prefers  to  give  the  youth  much  unasked 
spiritual  advice  with  a  little  secular  know- 
ledge. He  returns  his  list  with  a  few 
answers  on  the  margin,  and  writes  him  a 
long  letter.  Imagine  Dr.  Ingram  replying 
at  length  to  an  Eton  boy  (not  of  the  fold) 
who  wishes  to  look  smart  at  Cambridge, 
and  sends  him  a  list  of  questions  about  the 
astronomical  opinions  of  Sir  Robert  Ball 
and  the  philosophy  of  Professor  Ward. 

The  huge  collection  of  Augustine's  letters 
contains  scores  of  equally  interesting  docu- 
ments. A  widower  has  sent  to  ask  him 
for  a  panegyric  of  his  late  wife;  he  gets 
one,  together  with  a  lengthy  dissertation 
on  his  own  vices.  An  enterprising  young 
woman  writes  to  tell  him  that  the  scandals 
in  the  Church  greatly  disturb  her,  and  she 
is  consoled    at   great    length.     A  married 


The  Daily  Task  273 

woman  writes  to  tell  him  that  her  husband 
has  "broken  out."  She  had  taken  a  vow 
of  chastity,  and  had  succeeded  in  persuad- 
ing him  to  do  likewise,  but  when  she  went 
on  to  add  a  vow  of  poverty,  and  to  give 
all  their  valuables  to  a  couple  of  vagabond 
monks  who  passed  along,  the  husband's 
less  heroic  virtue  broke  down.  Augustine 
writes  her  a  patient  ethical  analysis  of  the 
situation,  the  only  defect  of  which  is  that 
he  insists  she  shall  keep  her  vow  of  con- 
tinence. Another  Christian  sends  a  formi- 
dable list  of  difficulties.  Is  it  lawful  to  kill 
an  aggressor  in  self-defence  ?  to  eat  food 
that  has  been  sacrificed  to  idols,  in  order  to 
avoid  death  by  starvation?  Augustine  does 
not  like  to  admit  either;  but  he  is  more 
reasonable  in  answering  the  questions 
whether  Publicola  may  deal  with  a  pagan 
butcher,  or  drink  from  a  well  with  a  guard- 
ian deity,  and  so  forth.  In  another  letter 
he  deals  with  the  very  practical  question  of 
female  finery,  paint,  false  hair,  etc.  He 
dislikes  it  almost  as  much  as  Jerome,  but  he 
is  lenient  in  the  case  of  maidens  who  are 


274  St.  Augustine 

"on  the  market";  for  married  women  he 
will  not  hear  of  paint  or  powder.  A  Car- 
thaginian lady,  who  has  sent  him  a  shirt 
which  was  made  for  a  brother  who  has 
died,  is  thanked  at  great  length.  A  com- 
munity of  monks  is  rent  into  factions  by  a 
quarrel  about  his  teaching,  and  he  has  to 
pacify  them.  A  community  of  nuns  have 
quarrelled  about  their  chaplain,  and  he  has 
to  intervene.  His  letters  frequently  run  to 
twenty  or  thirty  chapters. 

His  correspondents  are  of  all  classes  of 
the  community.  The  meanest  tradesman 
or  most  obscure  of  maidens  is  noticed  as 
promptly  as  the  highest  officials  of  the 
province.  We  shall  see  that  quite  a  number 
of  the  latter  were  in  frequent  and  friendly 
correspondence  with  Augustine.  Colleagues 
in  the  African  Church  and  bishops  beyond 
the  seas  are  in  constant  communication 
with  him.  He  has  a  long  and  voluminous 
correspondence  with  Paulinus  of  Nola. 
Paulinus  was  a  senator  of  a  rich  and  noble 
family  who  had  been  ordained  Christian 
priest  in  393,  and  had  retired  to  Nola  with 


The  Daily  Task  275 

his  wife  since  394.  He  and  Therasia  send 
long  and  intensely  spiritual  letters  (the 
bearer  always  bringing  a  few  loaves  of  the 
famous  Campanian  bread)  to  Augustine, 
and  nowhere  does  he  yield  more  freely  to 
his  mystic  and  spiritual  tendency  than  in 
his  replies  to  these. 

But  I  will  close  with  a  brief  account  of 
his  interesting  correspondence  with  St. 
Jerome.  Jerome  had  quarrelled  with  his 
fellow  monks  in  the  desert  of  Chalcis  when 
he  came  to  Rome  in  382;  he  had  a  violent 
quarrel  with  the  whole  of  the  Roman 
clergy,  and  was  forced  to  leave  the  city 
when  Pope  Damasus  died  in  385.  He 
departed  for  the  East  once  more,  taking  a 
number  of  his  spiritual  daughters  with  him, 
and  settled  down  to  a  grim  and  gloomy 
monastic  life  at  Bethlehem.  Augustine's 
lack  of  discernment  soon  brought  upon  him 
a  bewildering  experience  of  Jerome's  pecul- 
iar type  of  saintliness. 

In  394  or  395  Augustine  wrote  a  letter  to 
the  famous  monk,  expressing  admiration  of 
his  works,  and  inviting  Jerome's  attention 


276  St.  Augustine 


& 


to  his  own  writings.  The  letter  was  a  very 
proper  and  courteous  one,  on  the  whole, 
but  in  the  course  of  it  he  ventured  to  criti- 
cise Jerome's  interpretation  of  Gal.  ii.,  1 1-14. 
It  is  the  passage  where  Paul  modestly  de- 
scribes how  he  "withstood  Peter  to  the 
face."  The  very  human-looking  episode 
was  troubling  some  of  the  new  converts, 
and  so  Jerome  had  explained  that  it  was  all 
a  pious  make-believe  for  tactical  purposes. 
Augustine  saw  the  danger  of  admitting  that 
principle  in  the  interpretation  of  Scripture, 
and  pointed  it  out  to  Jerome.  This  first 
letter  did  not  reach  Jerome,  the  bearer  not 
going  to  Palestine.  In  397  Augustine  wrote 
again;  but  once  more  his  bearer,  a  priest 
named  Paulus,  made  a  considerable  circuit 
before  reaching  the  Holy  Land.  The  result 
was  that  the  Roman  clergy  got  hold  of  the 
letter,  and  made  merry  over  Jerome's  defeat 
in  his  favourite  field  of  study  long  before  it 
arrived  at  Bethlehem.  Jerome  was,  there- 
fore, sorely  angered  against  Augustine.  The 
letter  itself  was  rather  less  discreet  than  the 
preceding,  being  characteristically  confident 


The  Daily  Task  277 

in  argument,  and  pleasantly  inviting  Jerome 
to  "sing  his  palinodia"  But  the  chief 
offence  was  the  imaginary  one  of  having 
published  his  criticism  broadcast  without 
sending  it  to  Jerome  himself. 

Augustine,  marvelling  at  Jerome's  failure 
to  reply,  sent  a  third,  a  sweet  little  letter,  to 
Jerome,  and  the  eruption  began.  The  reply 
came  in  402.     It  was  moderately  bilious: 

Far  be  it  from  me  [said  Jerome]  to  dare  touch  the 
works  of  thy  holiness.  I  am  quite  content  to  care  for 
my  own  writings  without  criticising  those  of  others. 
For  the  rest,  thy  prudence  is  well  aware  that  opinions 
are  free,  and  that  it  is  a  childish  boastfulness,  only 
befitting  youths,  to  seek  renown  by  attacking  illustri- 
ous men.  ...  Be  content,  therefore,  to  love  one 
who  loves  thee,  and  do  not  thou,  a  youth,  provoke 
an  old  man  in  the  field  of  Scriptural  study. 

In  the  following  year  a  deacon  was  going 
out  to  the  East,  and  Augustine  forwarded 
another  letter  to  Jerome.  It  is  not  clear 
whether  he  had  received  Jerome's  letter  by 
this  time, — the  Benedictines,  at  all  events, 
think  he  had  not;  he  again  wrote  courte- 
ously, but  once  more  admitted  infelicitous 
passages  which  show  how  little  he  under- 


278  St.  Augustine 

stood  his  brother  saint.  He  had  heard  that 
Jerome  was  determined  to  retranslate  the 
Old  Testament  from  the  Hebrew,  and,  hav- 
ing a  rather  superstitious  regard  for  the  cur- 
rent Septuagint  version,  he  begged  him  to 
be  content  with  amending  that.  It  is  in 
this  letter,  also,  that  he  tells  Jerome  the 
story  of  the  preacher  and  the  gourd. 

Jerome  replied  at  once.  He  very  plainly 
intimates  at  the  outset  that  he  is  by  no 
means  convinced  of  the  sincerity  of  Augus- 
tine's explanation.  The  people  about  him 
are  urging,  he  says,  that  "there  has  been 
some  duplicity."  If  it  is  true  that  Augus- 
tine has  not  written  against  him,  "how  is 
it  that  the  Italians  have  got  what  thou  hast 
not  written?  or  why  dost  thou  ask  me  to 
reply  to  what  thou  now  sayest  thou  hast 
never  written?"  "As  I  told  thee  before,'' 
he  says  again,  "either  send  the  letter  to 
me  signed  with  thy  own  hand,  or  cease  to 
worry  an  old  man  in  the  retirement  of  his 
cell.  But  if  thou  art  determined  to  exercise 
or  to  parade  thy  learning,  seek  out  a  youth- 
ful opponent,   one  who  is   eloquent   and 


The  Daily  Task  279 

noble."  He  greatly  resents  Augustine's  in- 
vitation to  "  sing  his  palinodia."  Probably 
errors  would  be  found  in  his  own  writings 
if  they  were  scrutinised;  "but,"  he  con- 
tinues contemptuously,  "  I  do  not  say  this 
because  I  have  already  found  anything  to 
censure  in  thy  works,  for  I  have  never 
looked  at  them."  Finally,  he  dismisses  his 
"friend"  with  the  salutation:  "Farewell, 
dearest  friend,  my  son  according  to  age,  my 
parent  in  dignity;  and  let  me  beg  of  thee 
that  in  future  when  thou  writest  to  me, 
thou  wilt  take  care  that  the  letter  reach  me 
first." 

If  ever  a  saint  has  an  indisputable  right  to 
indignation,— and  I  should  be  the  last  to 
question  it,— Augustine  certainly  had  that 
privilege  after  receiving  Jerome's  letter. 
Jerome  had  been  inordinately  slow  to  un- 
derstand the  miscarriage  of  letters  (in  an 
age  when  this  was  a  daily  occurrence),  and 
had  been  almost  brutal  in  questioning  Au- 
gustine's good  faith.  But  Augustine's  re- 
ply is  singularly  noble  and  magnanimous. 
"Tantcene  animis  ccelestibus  tree?  "  he  must 


280  St.  Augustine 

have  asked  himself  in  astonishment  when 
he  read  the  letter;  but  he  does  not  allow 
even  his  astonishment  to  find  expression. 

I  beg  of  thee  [he  says],  that,  if  it  be  possible,  we 
seek  a  subject  to  discuss  whereby  our  hearts  may  be 
nourished  without  the  bitterness  of  discord.  And  if  I 
cannot  say  what  may  seem  to  me  to  need  emendation 
in  thy  writings,  and  thou  in  mine,  without  the  suspi- 
cion of  ill-feeling  or  the  injury  of  friendship,  let  us 
refrain  from  such  things  and  spare  life  and  health.  I 
know  that  I  am  far  from  that  perfection,  of  which  it  is 
written  :  "  If  any  one  offend  not  in  word,  he  is  a  per- 
fect man."  Yet  I  think  I  may  find  it  easy  to  ask  for- 
giveness of  thee  if  I  have  done  thee  hurt;  and  this 
thou  shouldst  make  known  to  me,  so  that  when  I  have 
heard  thee  thou  mayst  have  gained  thy  brother. 

A  soft  answer  does  not  turn  away  wrath 
on  the  moment.  Jerome  wrote  one  more 
bitter  letter. 

I  pass  over  the  salutation  with  which  thou  soothest 
my  feelings  [he  began];  I  say  nothing  of  the  compli- 
ments with  which  thou  seekest  to  console  me  in  my 
correction,  and  come  at  once  to  the  point. 

He  then  discusses  the  question  which 
Augustine  has  raised  with  regard  to  his 
interpretation  of  Paul. 


The  Daily  Task  281 

Thou  hast  found  a  new  argument  [says  Jerome]; 
being  a  bishop  of  such  repute  throughout  the  world,1 
thou  oughtest  to  promulgate  thy  opinion  and  win  the 
assent  of  thy  fellow  bishops.  I,  in  my  poor  monas- 
tery, with  my  fellow  monks,  that  is  to  say,  my  fellow 
sinners,  dare  not  lay  down  the  law  in  these  matters. 
.  .  .  Surely  thou  must  have  discovered  some- 
thing better,  since  thou  hast  rejected  the  authority  of 
the  older  writers. 

He  makes  unkind  reference  to  Augustine's 
acquaintance  with  the  Greek  Fathers  and 
to  his  weakness  for  writing  lengthy  epis- 
tles. 

The  lengthy  discourse  is  apt  to  be  lacking  in  in- 
telligence [he  growls] ;  and  with  all  respect,  it  seems 
to  me  thou  dost  not  understand  the  question  thou 
hast  put. 

Finally,  he  concludes : 

Let  me  beg  of  thee,  at  the  close  of  my  letter,  not  to 
press  an  old  man  and  retired  veteran  into  the  fight 
once  more.  Do  thou,  who  art  a  youth  and  at  the 
summit  of  pontifical  dignity,  be  content  to  teach  the 
people;  enrich  Rome  with  a  new  harvest  from  Africa. 
All  I  ask  is  to  live  in  peace  in  some  corner  of  my 
monastery  with  a  pupil  and  a  reader. 

A  few  months  later  he  wrote  again,  and 
seemed  to  be  quite  pacified. 

1  This  phrase,  isolated  from  its  context,  is  frequently  quoted  by  the 
hagiographer  in  proof  of  Augustine's  great  reputation. 


282  St.  Augustine 

Enough  of  these  quarrels  [he  said]  ;  let  us  be 
friends  again,  and  for  the  future  exchange  only  letters 
of  affection,  not  of  controversy.  .  .  .  Let  us,  if 
thou  wilt,  play  without  hurting  each  other  in  the  field 
of  Scriptural  study. 

Augustine  immediately  replied  with  a  let- 
ter which  is  admirable,  save  for  a  rather 
foolish  protest  against  the  term  "play." 
He  goes  into  the  Scriptural  question  at 
length,  and  concludes  with  a  fine  chapter 
on  the  ethics  of  Christian  controversy. 
"In  many  things,"  he  candidly  avows, 
"  Augustine  is  Jerome's  inferior";  and  he 
pleads  for  "freedom  in  charity."  The  few 
letters  that  passed  between  them  after- 
wards were  always  friendly.  Augustine 
constantly  presses  for  Jerome's  opinion,  and 
Jerome  is  always  finding  difficulties  to  ex- 
cuse himself.  But  he  is  complimentary  in 
all,  and  in  one  letter  (418)  writes  as  an  en- 
thusiastic admirer  of  Augustine.  Later  in 
life  Augustine  declared  that  Jerome  aband- 
oned his  first  position  on  the  meaning  of 
Paul's  words.  He  himself  retained  a  salu- 
tary consciousness  of  Jerome's  rhetorical 
capacity.    In  his  Retractations  he  tells  how, 


The  Daily  Task  283 

when  he  failed  to  elicit  Jerome's  opinion  on 
the  origin  of  the  soul,  he  reserved  his  own 
work  on  that  subject  until  after  Jerome's 
death.1 

1  Jerome  adopted  the  view  of  the  origin  of  the  soul  which  is  now 
universally  held  by  Catholic  philosophers — that  each  individual  soul  is 
created  by  God  when  the  body  is  ready  to  receive  it.  Augustine  felt 
that  this  injured  the  theory  of  the  transmission  of  original  sin,  and  he 
therefore  favoured  the  theory  of  propagation  of  souls,  like  bodies,  from 
parents  to  children. 


Chapter   XI 

Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism 

\  A  TE  have  already  had  frequent  occasion 
*  *  to  speak  of  the  Donatists.  The  Afri- 
can Church  was  split  into  halves  through- 
out most  of  the  fourth  century  by  that  most 
famous  schism  of  the  early  Church.  At  the 
beginning  of  Augustine's  career  the  great 
majority  of  the  Christians  of  Africa  belonged 
to  the  schismatical,  or  Donatist,  faction. 
Even  at  the  close  of  the  century  it  is  ques- 
tionable if  the  Donatists  were  not  still  in 
the  majority.  But  as  soon  as  Augustine 
became  a  power  in  the  Church,  the  success 
of  the  Donatists  began  to  wane.  He  de- 
voted himself  with  intense  ardour  to  the 
extinction  of  the  schism,  and  the  first  twenty 
years  of  his  episcopate  are  largely  absorbed 
in  the  controversy.     In  order  to  understand 

this  aspect  of  his  work,  we  must  glance  at 

284 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  285 

the  history  of  the  schism.  M.  de  Pressense 
and  other  philosophic  historians  assure  us 
that  it  was  a  natural  expression  of  the 
growing  democratic  protest  against  the  ad- 
vance of  hierarchic  pretensions.  The  fatal 
objection  to  the  theory  is  that  the  Donatists 
had  a  hierarchy  no  less  ambitious  and  au- 
thoritative than  that  of  the  Catholics;  and 
there  was  at  that  time  no  question  what- 
ever in  Africa  of  anything  like  allegiance  to 
Rome.  The  real  origin  of  the  Donatist 
schism  is  far  more  prosaic,  and  offers  little 
ground  for  large  political  theories.1 

After  the  close  of  the  last  persecution  of 
the  Christian  Church,  its  adherents  began 
to  emerge  into  the  light  of  day  and  repair 
the  breaches  in  their  organisation.  The 
stress  of  the  persecution  had  lain  heavily  on 
north-west  Africa,  and  it  was  a  small  and 
obscure  body  that  formed  its  Church  in  the 
early  years  of  the  fourth  century.  So  much 
is  familiar  history.  The  unfamiliar  circum- 
stance, which  the  chronicles  of  the  fourth 

1  The  classical  authority  on  the  Donatist  schism  is  Optatus,  Bishop 
of  Mileve,  who  wrote  his  famous  history  about  the  year  374. 


286  St.  Augustine 

century  abundantly  establish,  is  that  this  ob- 
scure and  struggling  body  was  undermined 
by  corruption.  One  naturally  assumes  that 
the  Christian  clergy  who  survived  the  last 
of  the  great  trials  of  the  Church  must  have 
been  exceptionally  chastened.  No  assump- 
tion could  be  farther  from  the  truth.  It  is 
in  an  ecclesiastical  soil  of  exceptional  gross- 
ness  that  the  Donatist  schism  took  root. 

The  actual  outbreak  of  the  schism  dates 
from  the  year  311.  In  that  year  the  bishops 
of  the  Proconsular  (or  Carthaginian)  pro- 
vince met  at  Carthage  for  the  ordination  of 
a  bishop  to  that  important  see.  Mensurius, 
the  preceding  bishop,  had  been  summoned 
to  court  to  answer  for  a  contumacious  sub- 
ordinate. Having  a  presentiment  that  he 
would  not  return  alive,  he  buried  the  gold 
and  silver  vessels  of  his  church  and  in- 
trusted the  secret  to  two  of  his  senior 
clergy,  Botrus  and  Celestius.  He  had,  ap- 
parently, a  shrewd,  if  unflattering,  appreci- 
ation of  his  clergy,  and  so  he  gave  a  list 
of  the  buried  treasures  into  the  charge  of  a 
pious  old  dame  in  his  congregation.     Men- 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  287 

surius  did  not  return,  and  clergy  and  laity 
met  for  the  purpose  of  electing  a  successor. 
Botrus  and  Celestius  had  been  so  much  im- 
pressed with  the  wealth  of  their  church 
that  they  exerted  themselves  to  secure  the 
election  of  one  or  the  other  to  the  see. 
However,  a  certain  Cascilian,  who  had  been 
a  popular  archdeacon  under  the  late  bishop, 
secured  the  majority  of  votes,  and  was  or- 
dained Bishop  of  Carthage  by  the  assembled 
bishops.  When,  moreover,  the  old  dame 
came  forward  with  the  secret  list  of  the 
treasures,  and  Botrus  and  Celestius  were 
compelled  to  hand  over  the  full  wealth  of 
the  Church  to  their  more  favoured  col- 
league, they  were  reduced  to  an  extreme 
stage  of  disaffection. 

"Ambition  and  avarice"  were  thus  two 
of  the  three  great  roots  of  the  schism,  says 
Optatus;  the  third  was  "the  anger  of  a 
humbled  woman."  Cascilian  had  had  the 
misfortune  to  quarrel  with  an  influential 
lady  of  the  congregation  during  his  archi- 
diaconate.  Lucilla,  a  wealthy  matron  of 
Carthage,  had  a  habit  of  kissing  the  lips  of 


288  St.  Augustine 

an  alleged  martyr,  whose  body  was  pre- 
served in  the  church,  before  presenting  her- 
self to  receive  the  sacrament.  There  was, 
it  appears,  a  great  lack  of  discrimination  in 
the  matter  of  reverencing  people  as  mar- 
tyrs in  that  violent  age,  and  Cascilian  had 
endeavoured  to  check  the  general  laxity. 
He  had  forbidden  the  Christians  to  flock  to 
the  jails  with  stores  of  food  and  drink  for 
the  sustenance  of  all  kinds  of  criminals  un- 
der the  pretence  that  they  were  martyrs  of 
the  Christian  Church.  He  now  scolded 
Lucilla  publicly  for  "  preferring  a  dead  man's 
lips  "  (Optatus  has  grave  doubts  about  the 
martyrdom)  to  the  sacred  chalice,  and  the 
angry  woman  deeply  resented  his  action. 
When  Caecilian  was  elected  bishop,  Lucilla 
joined  forces  with  the  disappointed  elders, 
and  they  determined  to  elect  a  rival  bishop. 
That  was  the  origin  of  the  schism.  All  the 
subsequent  pretexts  and  allegations  are  an 
afterthought;  and  all  talk  of  a  democratic 
reaction  is  quite  out  of  place. 

But  to  explain  how  the  conspirators  suc- 
ceeded in  causing  a  schism,  we  must  glance 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  289 

back  once  more  into  earlier  years.  In  the 
year  305  a  small  group  of  ten  or  a  dozen 
bishops  met  at  Cirta  for  the  ordination  of 
a  bishop  of  that  town.  The  persecution 
had  just  ended,  and  the  senex,  or  Primate 
of  theNumidian  province,  Secundus,  Bishop 
of  Tigisis,  proposed  to  begin  by  an  inquiry 
into  the  conduct,  during  the  persecution,  of 
the  assembled  bishops.  One  by  one  he  ac- 
cused his  colleagues  of  having  saved  their 
lives  during  the  persecution  by  delivering 
to  the  pagan  authorities  the  Scriptures  and 
other  sacred  possessions.1  One  by  one  his 
colleagues  admitted  the  crime,  until  he 
came  to  a  half-savage  prelate  of  the  name 
of  Purpurius.  "You  are  accused  of  mur- 
dering your  nephews,"  said  Secundus  to 
him.  "  Yes,  I  did  kill  them,"  answered  the 
prelate,  "and  I  '11  kill  anybody  who  at- 
tempts to  upset  me."  He  added  that  if 
Secundus  tried  to  bully  him  as  he  had  done 
the  others,  he  would  inform  the  meeting  of 

1  Those  who  had  done  this  were  called  traditores,  a  term  which 
will  frequently  recur.     Mensurius  of  Carthage  had  saved  his  life  by 
giving  up  dummy  books  and  having  a  little  diplomatic  understanding 
with  the  local  authorities. 
19 


290  St.  Augustine 

the  way  in  which  the  primate  had  saved 
his  own  life  in  the  persecution.  Secundus 
took  to  reflection  at  that,  and  finally  de- 
cided to  "  leave  the  whole  matter  to  God." 
They  then  proceeded  to  ordain  the  new 
Bishop  of  Cirta.  The  clergy  and  the  better 
part  of  the  laity  were  opposed  to  the  candi- 
date (Silvanus)  who  was  presented  for  the 
see,  saying  that  he  was  a  notorious  traditor; 
but  the  lower  orders,  who  favoured  Silva- 
nus, had  shut  them  up  somewhere  during 
the  election,  and  thus  secured  a  happy 
unanimity  for  their  candidate.  The  Nu- 
midian  bishops  were  induced,  by  the  gift 
of  a  respectable  sum,  to  overlook  the  irregu- 
larity of  the  election,  and  they  ordained  Sil- 
vanus; the  new  bishop's  first  act  being  to 
confer  the  priesthood  on  the  man  who  had 
furnished  the  bribe  for  Secundus  and  his 
colleagues.1 

1  All  this  was  subsequently  proved  before  the  civic  authorities  by 
a  deacon  of  Cirta  who  was  deposed  by  Silvanus.  The  interesting 
acta  are  to  be  read  in  Migne's  volume  of  Optatus's  History.  To  com- 
plete the  picture  of  the  group  who  play  an  important  part  in  our 
schism,  let  me  add  that  Purpurius  and  another  bishop  were  also 
convicted  of  stealing  silver  cups  and  a  quantity  of  vinegar  from  the 
pagan  temple. 


Augustine  and  the "  Donatist  Schism  291 

It  was  to  these  men  that  the  thoughts 
of  the  conspirators  turned.  They  were  in- 
vited to  Carthage,  and  were  received  at  the 
house  of  Lucilla.  Various  reasons  were 
then  discovered  for  questioning  the  valid- 
ity of  Caecilian's  ordination.  Secundus 
maintained  that  a  primate  (the  Bishop  of 
Carthage  being  Primate  of  the  Proconsular 
province)  should  be  ordained  by  a  primate. 
But  the  chief  allegation  was  that  the  bishop 
who  had  laid  hands  on  Qecilian,  Felix  of 
Aptunga,  was  a  traditor.  This  was  a  seri- 
ous point  to  raise,  since  it  was  then  easy 
to  spread  the  idea  that  an  ordination  might 
be  invalid  if  performed  by  an  unworthy 
minister.  Cascilian  entered  into  communi- 
cation with  the  Numidian  bishops,  offering 
to  come  before  them  for  a  discussion  of  the 
situation,  and  asking  that  at  least  they 
would  ordain  him  themselves,  if  they  held 
his  ordination  to  be  invalid,  since  he  had 
been  unanimously  elected  by  the  people 
and  clergy.  Purpurius  alone  saw  an  ad- 
vantage in  this  offer;  "let  him  be  invited 
here,"  he  said  in  barbarous  Latin,  "as  if  we 


h^ 


292  St.  Augustine 

were  going  to  ordain  him,  and  we  '11  smash 
his  head  in  for  his  trouble."  The  other 
bishops  had  a  rudimentary  moral  feeling, 
it  appears,  and  they  preferred  to  ignore 
Cascilian;  moreover,  the  people,  hearing  of 
the  threat,  refused  to  let  Qecilian  go  to 
their  council.  Pocketing  a  heavy  bribe 
from  Lucilla,  the  seventy  bishops  proceeded 
to  set  up  a  second  bishop  at  Carthage, 
selecting  a  certain  Majorinus,  a  reader  of 
the  Church,  and  one  who  shared  with  the 
dead  "  martyr"  the  affection  of  Lucilla. 
They  then  gave  Majorinus  the  usual  letters 
of  communication  with  all  the  churches  of 
the  Roman  world,  and  the  Donatist  schism 
was  launched.1 

Such  is  the  undisputed  story  of  the  origin 
of  the  Donatist  schism.  In  view  of  the 
misleading  theory  of  M.  de  Pressense  and 
other  Christian  Presbyterians,  1  have  thought 
it  necessary  to  describe  the  sordid  episode 
at  some  length.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that 
we  may  trace  a  democratic  reaction  in  the 

1  It  took  the  name  of  Majorinus's  successor,  Donatus,  a  much  abler 
and  more  energetic  individual. 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  293 

remarkable  growth  of  the  schism.  In  the 
course  of  time,  as  will  be  seen,  the  Donatist 
ranks  were  swelled  by  thousands  of  fugitive 
slaves  and  labourers;  and  we  find  many 
democratic  pleasantries,  such  as  forcing  the 
wealthy  Catholic  to  pull  the  chariot  in 
which  his  slave  was  seated,  or  to  take  the 
place  of  the  miller's  ass.  But  this  is  a 
purely  accidental  circumstance.  There  was 
precisely  the  same  hierarchic  claim  on  the 
Donatist  side  as  on  the  Catholic.  There 
was  no  question  whatever  of  Rome's  pre- 
tensions, or  of  reaction  against  them.  It 
is  true  that  after  a  few  years  Constantine 
had  the  quarrel  adjudicated  upon  at  Rome, 
but  the  Roman  bishop  then  acted  only  as 
an  important  and  impartial  neighbour  who 
was  called  in  to  arbitrate;  and  that  not  by 
the  Africans,  but  by  the  Emperor.  It  will 
be  seen  that  throughout  the  whole  century 
of  the  struggle  neither  Catholics  nor  Dona- 
tists  recognised  the  mild  pretension  of  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  to  a  kind  of  vague  suprem- 
acy. The  truth  is,  that  even  the  notion 
of   a    federation    of   churches    was    only 


294  St.  Augustine 

dimly  conceived  at  the  beginning  of  the 
schism.  It  was  elaborated  by  the  Catholics, 
or  Caecilianists,  in  the  course  of  the  struggle 
when  they  found  the  "churches  beyond 
the  seas"  to  favour  the  case  of  Cascilian; 
just  as,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Donatists 
only  elaborated,  as  the  schism  advanced, 
their  central  position  of  the  invalidity  of 
sacraments  (whether  baptism  or  ordination), 
conferred  by  sinners.  The  dogma  of  a 
central  authority  to  which  submission  was 
required  would  have  been  a  point  of  the 
first  importance  in  the  arguments  of  the 
Caecilianists.  They  do  not  even  whisper 
it.  It  was  "  a  concern  of  the  Africans,"  as 
both  sides  agreed  at  the  great  Council  of 
411,  and  "the  churches  beyond  the  seas" 
were  to  stand  aside  and  communicate 
with  the  winner,  after  they  had  fought  it 
out. 

I  will  touch  very  briefly  the  development 
of  the  schism  down  to  the  time  of  Au- 
gustine. Rome  had  a  traditional  horror 
of  the  reiteration  of  sacraments,  just  as 
Carthage  had  a  traditional   laxity  in  that 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  295 

regard.1  Rome,  therefore,  could  not  hesitate 
to  communicate  with  Cascilian,  and  that 
meant  the  support  of  the  newly  converted 
Emperor  for  the  Cascilianists.  The  Dona- 
tists,  seeing  that  the  imperial  gifts  were 
going  exclusively  to  their  rivals,  appealed  to 
the  Emperor  for  a  decision.  The  case  was, 
of  course,  decided  against  them  at  Rome, 
Aries,  and  Carthage,  after  a  series  of  in- 
quiries; and,  finally,  by  Constantine  him- 
self in  316.  At  first  Constantine  persecuted 
the  schismatics,  though  he  is  said  to  have 
told  the  Africans  eventually  to  settle  the 
matter  themselves.  His  successor  took  lit- 
tle more  notice  of  them,  and  under  Julian 
their  churches  were  restored  to  them  and 
their  bishops  recalled.  Valentinian  and 
Gratian  passed  a  number  of  violent  decrees, 
confiscating  their  churches,  etc.;  but  none 
of  these  were  enforced  very  rigorously  un- 
til 398,  the  date  when  we  find  Augustine 

!St.  Cyprian  having,  a  few  years  before,  defended  the  practice 
resolutely  in  defiance  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  I  avoid  the  use  of  the 
word  "pope,"  because  every  important  bishop  was  called  a  pope  at 
that  time  ;  Jerome  gives  that  title  to  Augustine,  and  Augustine  to 
Ambrose. 


296  St.  Augustine 

facing  the  schism.  In  395  Theodosius,  the 
able  and  zealous  ruler  of  the  East,  passed  a 
severe  law  against  all  heretics  who  ex- 
ercised priestly  functions.  He  died  in  the 
same  year,  and  Gildo,  an  African  prince, 
usurped  authority  over  the  whole  of  that 
diocese.  Gildo  was  very  friendly  with  an 
active  Donatist  bishop,  Optatus  of  Tham- 
ugade,  and  during  his  brief  authority  the 
Donatists  spread  over  the  provinces  with 
the  wildest  license.  They  had  by  this  time 
associated  with  their  cause  a  vast  and  re- 
markable army  who  went  by  the  name  of 
the  Circumcellions.1  It  seems  hardly  just 
to  compare  this  army  with  the  Coven- 
anters, or  any  other  historical  body,  as  is 
done  sometimes.  In  addition  to  the  gen- 
uine religious  fanatics  who  flourished  their 
"Israelites"  (heavy  clubs)  over  the  heads 
of  the  Cascilianists,  there  were  undoubtedly 
thousands  whose  only  attraction  lay  in 
pillage  and  violence.  Fugitive  slaves  and 
vagabond  monks  flocked  to  the  standard. 

1  Because,  says  Augustine,  they  used  to  wander  from  hut  to  hut 
(circum  cellas)  of  the  peasantry,  begging  or  exacting  food  and 
shelter. 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  297 

Augustine  tells  many  a  story  of  Catholic 
delinquents  evading  the  discipline  of  the 
Church  by  joining  the  Donatists,  and  of 
women  who  thus  escaped  from  marital 
control;  in  one  letter  (No.  35)  he  tells  of  a 
deacon,  suspended  for  improper  behaviour 
at  a  certain  nunnery,  immediately  passing 
over  to  the  Circumcellions  with  two  of  the 
nuns.  At  a  word  from  one  of  their  bishops 
these  wild  hordes  would  spread  into  a  dis- 
trict, and  fill  it  with  revolting  outrages. 
They  would  pour  vinegar  and  salt-water 
down  the  throats  of  the  Catholic  clergy, 
put  lime  in  their  eyes,  and  sometimes  cud- 
gel them  to  death.  They  would  seize  their 
churches,  wash  and  scrape  the  walls  and 
floors,  burn  the  wooden  altars,  sell  the 
sacred  vessels  in  the  open  market, — to  be 
bought  generally  by  sordidce  mulieres,  says 
Optatus, —  and  cast  the  consecrated  ele- 
ments to  the  dogs.  They  would  force  the 
laity  to  receive  Donatist  baptism,  and  see 
that  they  were  faithful  to  their  new 
profession.  They  would  harness  wealthy 
Cascilianists   to  their  own   chariots,    turn 


298  St.  Augustine 

respectable patresfamilias  into  millers'  asses, 
put  rush  tunics  on  priests  and  daub  them 
with  mud,  burn  and  plunder  houses,  destroy 
debtors'  tablets,  and  commit  a  thousand 
outrages.  During  the  short  usurpation  of 
Gildo  this  pandemonium  was  at  its  height. 
At  the  beginning  of  398,  however,  Gildo 
was  defeated  by  the  imperial  forces,  and 
the  Church  would  have  been  more  than 
human  if  it  had  not  retaliated.  Before  the 
end  of  the  year  Honorius  reaffirmed  the 
decree  of  Theodosius,  and  awarded  the  pen- 
alty of  death  to  all  who  violated  the 
churches  or  assaulted  the  clergy  of  the  Or- 
thodox party.  But  we  have  now  arrived 
at  the  date  of  Augustine's  struggle  with  the 
schism,  and  must  review  its  further  pro- 
gress in  the  light  of  his  actions. 

Augustine  was  well  acquainted  with  "  the 
fury  of  their  drunken  Circumcellions  "  from 
the  beginning  of  his  episcopate.  When  he 
came  to  Hippo  he  found  that  the  Donatist 
baker  would  not  bake  for  the  Cascilianists. 
He  found  his  people  often  violently  forced 
into    the    Donatist    communion,    and    his 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  299 

clergy  assaulted.  He  himself  only  escaped 
an  ambush  they  set  for  him  on  one  occa- 
sion by  providentially  losing  his  way.  Yet 
it  need  hardly  be  said  that  his  attitude 
was  at  first  one  of  gentleness  and  forbear- 
ance. We  have  to  follow  his  development 
step  by  step  until  he  became  what  Barbey- 
rac  has  called  "the  patriarch  of  Christian 
persecutors." 

Augustine's  first  Donatist  document  is  a 
letter  to  a  bishop  of  the  sect  named  Maxi- 
minus,  written  in  the  year  392.  It  is  a 
courteous,  if  not  friendly  letter,  greeting 
Maximinus  as  "most  beloved  and  honour- 
able brother."  In  the  following  year  he 
wrote  his  popular  ballad  against  the  sect, 
and  his  work  Contra  Epistolam  Donati.  In 
the  same  year  a  provincial  synod,  which 
met  at  Hippo,  dealt  gently  and  temperately 
with  the  question,  and  decided  to  allow 
Donatist  priests  to  retain  their  functions 
after  conversion  if  they  had  not  rebaptised,1 

!The  Donatist  practice  of  repeating  the  baptism  and  orders  given 
by  the  Csecilianists  was  now  one  of  the  chief  rocks  of  offence. 
They  held  that  the  Catholic  "  orders  "  were  not  valid,  coming  origin- 
ally from  a  contaminated  source  —  the  traditor,  Felix  of  Aptunga. 


300  St.  Augustine 

and  if  they  brought  their  congregations 
with  them.  In  397  a  Council  of  Carthage 
discussed  the  question  of  admitting  to  the 
service  of  the  altar  converts  who  had  re- 
ceived Donatist  baptism  in  their  infancy. 
Legates  were  sent  to  ask  the  opinion  of 
the  bishops  of  Rome  and  Milan  (the  two 
being  put  on  a  quite  equal  footing);  and 
when  these  prelates  opposed  the  idea,  the 
Africans  quietly  disregarded  their  opinions 
(though  they  sent  further  legates  to  con- 
vince them)  and  adopted  the  practice. 
The  fact  that  some  of  their  churches  had 
"not  even  an  unlettered  deacon  "  to  serve 
them  moderated  their  dogmatic  feeling.  In 
the  same  year  Augustine  had  another  public 
debate.  He  had  endeavoured  to  arrange 
one  with  the  Donatist  Bishop  of  Hippo,  but 
without  success;  though  he  had  urged  the 
civil  magistrate  to  put  pressure  on  his  rival, 
and  had  spoken  with  some  warmth  of  the 
excesses  of  the  Donatists.  However,  in 
397  he  was  passing  through  a  small  town 
on  his  way  to  Cirta,  and  he  heard  that  the 
Donatist  bishop  was  at  home.     He  at  once 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  301 

went  to  the  house  and  engaged  the  bishop, 
a  quiet  and  tolerant  old  man  of  little  ability, 
in  a  debate.  Augustine  stipulated  for  the 
presence  of  notaries  as  usual,  but  they  seem 
to  have  been  Donatists,  and  they  refused  to 
work.  His  own  clerics  then  commenced 
to  take  down  the  debate,  but  a  great  crowd 
of  idlers  pressed  in,  and  made  so  much 
noise  with  their  comments  and  applause, 
that  the  debate  has  unfortunately  lost  the 
reward  of  immortality.  Augustine  after- 
wards wrote  his  version  of  the  proceedings 
to  his  rival's  congregation,  and  complained 
that  Fortunius  had  falsified  copies  of  some 
of  the  works  they  referred  to. 

In  398  Gildo  was  defeated,  as  I  said,  and 
the  golden  age  of  Donatism  came  to  an 
end.  By  this  time  the  Cascilianists  were 
reduced  to  a  pitiful  condition  in  the  coun- 
try. But  this  was  the  year  of  the  turn  of 
the  tide.  Honorius  at  once  renewed  the 
law  of  Theodosius,  which  imposed  a  heavy 
fine  on  every  heretic  exercising  sacerdotal 
functions,  and  curbed  the  violence  of  the 
Circumcellions.    Augustine  still  looked  with 


302  St.  Augustine 

disfavour  on  the  interference  of  the  civil  au- 
thorities in  the  controversy.  It  was  about 
this  time  that  he  wrote  his  two  books 
Contra  Partem  Donati  (which  we  no  longer 
have),  in  which  he  declared  that  he  'Miked 
not  to  see  the  schismatics  violently  forced 
into  communion  by  the  exercise  of  secular 
authority."  We  have  a  private  letter  in 
which  he  shows  that  he  is  even  averse  to 
parental  pressure  being  put  on  children  of 
mature  years;  he  desires  no  converts  who 
do  not  come  to  him  with  perfect  spon- 
taneity. But  his  attitude  rapidly  changes 
in  the  following  years.  We  can  trace  the 
growth  of  his  opinion  in  his  letters  until  we 
find  in  401  open  indications  of  a  change. 
One  of  the  ablest  of  the  Donatists  was  an 
ex-advocate,  Petilian,  now  Bishop  of  Cirta. 
He  was  the  Augustine  of  the  Donatist  party, 
the  successor  of  their  great  Donatus  of 
Carthage.  Augustine  secured  a  copy  of  his 
writing  against  the  Caecilianists,  and  began 
his  work  Against  Petilian 's  Letter.  In  the 
second  book  of  this  work  he  not  only  de- 
fends the  use  of  force  by  the  example  of 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  303 

Christ  in  the  temple,  but  he  sets  an  exam- 
ple of  intemperance  and  arrogance  of  speech 
which  the  Donatists  quickly  follow.  Petil- 
ian's  temper  was  not  improved  by  remarks 
about  his  "diabolical  pride"  and  "most 
inept  loquacity,"  and  he  repaid  in  the  same 
coinage.  In  the  third  book  Augustine  has 
entirely  lost  the  idea  of  moderation.  He  is 
sadly  domineering  and  abusive:  "Let  him 
go  now,"  he  says  at  one  stage,  "and  de- 
nounce me  as  a  dialectician  with  his  puffing 
lungs  and  turgid  throat,"  and  there  is  much 
talk  about  his  "stupid  cursing"  and  "blas- 
phemous mouth."  In  the  end  he  modestly 
contrasts  their  respective  writings  as  "the 
inflated  and  the  solid,  the  bloated  and  the 
sound,  the  storm  and  the  calm,  divine  ut- 
terance and  human  presumption."  In  the 
meantime  he  had  an  adventure  with  another 
able  Donatist  bishop,  Crispinus  of  Calama. 
His  disciple  Possidius,  now  Catholic  bishop 
of  that  town,  was  attacked  by  the  Donatists 
in  a  neighbouring  village.  They  set  fire  to 
the  house  he  took  refuge  in,  thrashed  the 
men  of  his  party,  and  stole  all  their  horses. 


304  St.  Augustine 

Possidius,  obviously  acting  on  Augustine's 
advice,  appealed  to  the  law  — not  the  civil 
law,  which  would  punish  his  assailants,  but 
the  new  law  of  Honorius  against  heretics, 
which  he  claimed  to  apply  to  Crispinus. 
The  Donatist  was  convicted,  and  it  was 
only  the  intercession  of  Augustine  and  Pos- 
sidius that  saved  him  from  a  heavy  fine. 
But  the  important  point  is  that  Augustine 
has  appealed  to  the  law  against  heretics. 
There  are  other  indications  that  his  feelings 
are  hardening.  In  all  that  he  writes  from 
the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  he  betrays 
a  pitifully  narrow  and  sectarian  judgment 
of  his  fellows.  Thus  in  his  De  Bono  Con- 
jugali  (written  in  401)  he  finds  that  "the 
dinners  of  the  just  are  more  meritorious 
than  the  fasts  of  the  infidels,  the  marriage 
of  the  faithful  more  meritorious  than  the 
virginity  of  the  heretic";  in  fact,  the  here- 
tic's fast  is  "a  service  of  demons,"  the 
Donatist  virginity  "  no  better  than  fornica- 
tion." 

Of  the  many  works  he  wrote  against 
the  Donatists  at  this  period  little  need  be 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  3°5 

said.  They  have  no  literary  value,  and 
little  human  interest  of  an  agreeable  kind. 
They  repeat  incessantly  the  familiar  argu- 
ments on  the  familiar  points — whether  Felix 
of  Aptunga  was  a  traditor,  whether  the 
sacraments  given  by  an  unworthy  minister 
are  invalid,  and  so  forth.  Between  400  and 
410  he  wrote  his  De  Baptismo  (seven  books), 
Contra  Epistolam  Parmeniani  (three  books), 
De  Unico  Baptismo  (an  answer  to  a  work 
of  Petilian's  which  is  "inflated  only  with 
sounding  words,"  but  which  he  answers  for 
the  sake  of  "slower  minds"),  and  the  four 
books  Contra  Cresconium.  The  last-named 
work  (written  in  409)  is  a  temperate  reply 
to  a  Donatist  grammarian  who  had  taken 
up  Augustine's  reply  to  Petilian,  and  asked 
(evidently  in  reference  to  Augustine's  ab- 
usive language)  whether  he  thought  of 
"finishing  by  his  intolerable  arrogance"  a 
controversy  that  had  proceeded  so  many 
years.  In  his  letters  Augustine  expresses 
his  feeling  about  persecution  with  perfect 
candour.  In  406  he  writes  to  a  venerable 
Donatist  bishop  (Ep.  88)  in  defence  of  the 


306  St.  Augustine 

recent  severe  law  against  the  schismatics. 
They  appealed  first  to  the  Court,  he  says; 
it  is  a  case  of  the  guilty  taking  Daniel's 
place  in  the  lions'  den.  He  still,  however, 
lays  great  stress  on  the  outrages  of  the 
Donatists  (admitting  to  some  extent  that 
the  Circumcellions  generally  get  a  quid  pro 
quo  from  the  Catholic  laity)  in  extenuation 
of  the  law.  A  little  later  (Ep.  89)  he  writes 
a  candid  and  direct  defence  of  the  laws. 
Their  coercion  is  "a  most  merciful  disci- 
pline," the  "medicine  of  the  Church"; 
"madmen"  must  be  bound  and  "lethar- 
gies "  must  be  stirred  up  for  the  sake  of 
their  health;  even  the  devil  would  be  less 
bold,  he  thinks,  if  some  coercion  were  im- 
posed. He  is  clearly  passing  from  his 
apologetic  attitude  to  the  view  that  relig- 
ious coercion  is  an  admirable  institution. 
And  two  years  afterwards,  in  a  letter  to  the 
Rogatian  bishop,  Vincentius,  he  shows  him- 
self "the  complete  persecutor."  Vincent 
seems  to  have  written  to  chide  him — notice 
the  perversity  of  human  judgment!  — on 
his  degeneration  since  their  school-days  at 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  307 

Carthage,  when  Augustine  was  a  "quiet 
and  respectable  youth."  Augustine  replies 
(Ep.  93)  with  a  long  and  unwavering  de- 
fence of  coercion.  "  The  important  point  is 
not  whether  a  man  is  compelled,"  he  says, 
"  but  to  what  he  is  compelled."  The  fruits 
of  the  imperial  laws  are  their  justification. 
He  knows  even  Circumcellions  who  are  now 
grateful  that  the  pressure  of  the  laws  had 
led  them  to  study  the  Caecilian  position 
more  carefully.  In  a  word,  persecution  has 
at  length  appeared  to  him  in  the  light  of  a 
providential  and  highly  philanthropic  insti- 
tution; it  is  a  use  of  force  which  he  can 
only  compare  to  the  coercion  with  which 
we  prevent  a  fever-patient  from  flinging 
himself  out  of  the  window.  He  adds  the 
tu  quoque  argument  and  the  usual  appeal  to 
the  outrages  of  the  Donatists;  but  the 
dominant  idea  of  the  letter  is  an  apprecia- 
tion of  religious  coercion  in  and  of  itself. 

The  laws  to  which  Augustine  refers  in 
these  letters  are  those  which  Honorius  was 
induced  to  pass  in  405.  Two  years  pre- 
viously the  Caecilianist  bishops,  in  council 


308  St.  Augustine 


23 


at  Carthage,  had  sent  a  temperate  and  earn- 
est challenge  to  the  Donatists  to  meet  them 
in  a  public  conference.  The  Donatists  scorn- 
fully rejected  the  invitation,  and  Augus- 
tine thereupon  wrote  a  letter  to  the  laymen 
of  the  sect,  in  which  he  pointed  out  the 
moral  of  the  refusal  of  their  clergy.  This 
greatly  incensed  the  Donatists,  so  that  the 
only  immediate  result  was  a  renewal  of  the 
activity  of  the  Circumcellions.  But  with  Au- 
gustine's gradual  conversion  to  the  policy  of 
coercion  a  change  of  tactics  was  inevitable. 
He  had  hitherto  been  the  chief  obstacle  to 
a  change  of  policy,  constantly  appealing  to 
his  colleagues  to  rely  exclusively  on  moral 
force  in  matters  of  religion.  His  moral  force 
had  not  achieved  the  success  he  had  antici- 
pated. His  works  found  able  critics,  and 
his  challenges  to  debate  were  rarely  ac- 
cepted, and  still  more  rarely  effective.  In 
the  year  404,  when  the  African  bishops  met 
at  Carthage  on  the  26th  of  June,  he  gave 
his  fatal  sanction  to  the  policy  of  recourse 
to  the  "secular  arm."  Two  bishops  were 
sent  to  ask  Honorius  to  enforce  the  law  of 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  309 

Theodosius  and  make  it  explicitly  applica- 
ble to  the  Donatists l ;  they  asked  also  that 
he  would  renew  the  law  which  made  in- 
valid all  legacies  to  heretics  —  except  in  the 
event  of  conversion.  Honorius  replied  in 
February  of  the  following  year  with  a  severe 
law.  He  declared  the  Donatists  to  be  her- 
etics, confiscated  the  meeting-houses  and 
goods  of  all  who  repeated  baptism,  excluded 
them  from  testamentary  benefits,  and  im- 
posed heavy  fines  on  aggressive  controver- 
sialists. It  was  now  open  to  the  Catholic 
bishop  to  drag  his  rival  —  as  we  have  seen 
Possidius  drag  the  Bishop  of  Calama  —  be- 
fore the  civic  tribunal,  and  have  him  not 
only  heavily  fined,  but  also  branded  with 
the  odious  appellation  of  ' '  heretic. "  Carth- 
age was  almost  immediately  purged  of  the 
schismatics.  When  the  bishops  met  again 
in  the  month  of  August,  they  sent  two  of 
their  number  to  thank  the  Emperor  for  his 
welcome  legislation,  and  issued  a  letter  to 

1  The  law  was  directed  against  "  heretics,"  and  the  Donatists 
claimed  that,  on  any  view  of  the  controversy,  they  could  not  be 
accused  of  more  than  schism.  In  dogma  and  ritual  they  agreed 
entirely  with  their  rivals. 


3io  St.  Augustine 

all  the  African  judges,  acquainting  them  with 
the  tenor  of  the  new  law. 

The  next  three  years  were  marked  by  a 
dreary  and  repellent  struggle  with  the  angry 
schismatics.  Homeless  and  proscribed,  the 
Donatists  had  no  weapon  but  their  dreaded 
club,  and  they  used  it  with  vigour.  The 
fifth  century  was  not  of  a  temper  to  meet 
violence  with  meekness,  and  Africa  was 
soon  devastated  by  a  kind  of  civil  war.1 
On  the  23rd  of  August,  408,  the  virtual  ruler 
of  the  Western  Empire,  Stilicho,  came  to  an 
ignominious  end.  Schismatics  and  pagans 
at  once  asserted  that  the  coercive  laws 
passed  during  his  regency  died  with  him, 
and  began  to  seize  their  churches  and  tem- 
ples once  more.  Stilicho's  successor,  Olym- 
pus, was  a  Christian,  and  Augustine  wrote, 
at  the  first  rumour  of  his  promotion,  to 
secure  his  interest  on  behalf  of  the  Church. 
In  the  meantime  (in  October)  the  African 

1  So  great  was  the  confusion,  that  a  Donatist  named  Marculus, 
who  was  put  to  death  by  the  Catholics,  and  whom  Augustine 
credited  with  self-destruction,  —  who  should,  therefore,  on  either 
hypothesis  be  now  in  Tartarus,  — is  actually  honoured  year  after  year, 
under  the  title  of  Macarius,  in  the  "  Roman  Martyrology."  So  it  is 
stated  in  a  note  in  the  Migne  edition  of  "Augustine  "  (vol.  ix.,  col.  526). 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  311 

bishops  met  again  at  Carthage,  and  sent 
two  of  their  number  to  the  Emperor  at  Ra- 
venna, asking  him  to  reaffirm  the  validity 
of  the  laws  passed  in  the  time  of  Stilicho. 
Augustine  was  not  present,  but  he  wrote  a 
second  letter  (No.  97)  to  Olympus,  and 
urged  him  to  secure  the  enforcement  of  the 
law  without  waiting  for  the  deputation  from 
Carthage.  When  Augustine's  letter  arrived 
we  do  not  know.  He  speaks  of  writing 
"in  the  middle  of  winter,"  but  we  need 
not  take  that  too  literally;  on  the  other 
hand,  he  obviously  believes  his  letter  will 
arrive  before  the  Carthaginian  bishops. 
Probably  both  reached  Ravenna  about  the 
end  of  November  or  beginning  of  Decem- 
ber; and  with  them  came  a  crowd  of 
maimed  and  half-blinded  clerics,  who  had 
fled  to  court  with  lively  proof  of  the  out- 
rages of  the  Donatists.  In  December  the 
Emperor  sent  the  desired  decree  to  Donatus, 
the  Proconsul  of  Africa,  and  the  work  of 
making  converts  by  fiscal  machinery  recom- 
menced. Augustine  wrote  to  Donatus  (Ep. 
100),  urging  him  to  apply  the  decree  at 


312  St.  Augustine 

once,  but  to  spare  the  lives  of  the  Donatists 
and  avoid  all  appearance  of  vindictiveness. 

Then  there  occurred  a  development  of  the 
situation  which  somewhat  perplexes  the 
ordinary  ecclesiastical  writer.  In  the  sum- 
mer of  409  the  African  bishops  were  once 
more  thrown  into  grave  anxiety  by  the 
appearance  of  a  new  decree  from  Ravenna, 
in  which  Honorius  suddenly  attains  a  com- 
manding height  of  humanity  and  toleration. 
He  directs  that  in  future  "  no  one  shall  em- 
brace the  worship  of  the  Christian  religion 
except  by  his  own  free  will,"  and  rescinds 
his  oppressive  decrees  against  the  Donatists. 
The  writer  of  the  article  on  "Donatism" 
in  the  Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography 
notes  that  political  considerations  influenced 
the  decision,  but  claims  that  it  was  dictated 
" partly  by  the  kindliness  of  heart"  of  the 
Emperor.1    Once    more   the   spirit  of  the 

1  The  Emperor  who,  so  Zosimus  says,  when  told  in  410  that  "it 
was  all  up  with  Rome,"  anxiously  inquired  whether  they  meant  his 
favourite  hen  of  that  name,  and  was  greatly  relieved  when  he  heard 
it  was  only  the  city  of  Rome  that  had  fallen.  For  a  choice  specimen 
of  the  literary  art  of  tempering  justice  with  mercy,  which  is  so  ad- 
mirably cultivated  by  the  ecclesiastical  writer,  I  would  recommend 
the  above  article  (and  a  few  others)  in  the  said  Dictionary. 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  313 

Donatists  revived  in  Africa,  and  the  hateful 
struggle  was  renewed  about  the  altars  of 
the  Prince  of  Peace.  In  June,  410,  the 
bishops  met  at  Carthage,  and  sent  four 
delegates  to  Ravenna  to  renew  their  com- 
plaints. The  answer  came  swift  and  sharp. 
The  "kindliness"  of  Honorius  has  had  a 
brief  reign.  In  September  he  sends  the 
following  decree  to  Heraclian,  now  supreme 
in  Africa:  "  The  decree  which  the  followers 
of  heretical  superstition  had  obtained  to 
protect  their  rites  is  entirely  rescinded,  and 
we  direct  that  they  suffer  the  penalty  of 
proscription  and  death  if  they  again  venture 
to  meet  in  public  in  their  criminal  audacity." 
A  few  weeks  afterwards  a  new  decree  was 
issued,  ordering  a  public  conference  to  be 
held  at  Carthage  within  six  months,  in 
which  the  Catholic  and  Donatist  bishops 
should  defend  their  respective  positions 
before  a  civil  judge. 

I  will  deal  more  fully  in  the  next  chapter 
with  the  political  events  which  are  vaguely 
reflected  in  this  rapid  change  of  policy. 
For  the    moment,    before    describing   the 


3H  St.  Augustine 

great  conference  at  Carthage,  I  will  only 
say  that  we  have  no  need  whatever  to 
make  a  microscopic  research  into  the  char- 
acter of  Honorius.  Since  the  death  of 
Stilicho  in  408,  the  Court  at  Ravenna  had 
lived  in  hourly  dread  of  Alaric  and  his 
Goths.  In  409  Alaric  set  up  a  rival  emperor 
at  Rome,  and  the  possession  of  Africa  be- 
came of  supreme  importance  to  him  and 
his  puppet.  The  practised  army  of  the 
Circumcellions  would  have  been  a  formid- 
able auxiliary  to  an  invading  force,  and  it 
was  well  known  they  would  not  hesitate  to 
join  the  Arian  Goths.  Hence  the  momen- 
tary "kindliness."  The  small  force  sent 
by  Attalus  into  Africa  was  cut  up  by  Her- 
aclian  in  410.  Honorius  was  informed  that 
the  loyal  count  had  detained  all  the  corn- 
ships,  and  was  prepared  to  resist  invasion. 
Hence  the  decree  of  September.  But  it 
was  important  that  this  religious  schism, 
which  had  now  revealed  its  grave  menace 
to  political  unity,  should  cease  as  promptly 
and  with  as  little  violence  as  possible. 
Honorius   therefore   adopted   the    idea  of 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  3l5 

a  conference,  which  both  Donatists  and 
Catholics  had  urged  more  than  once.  On 
the  14th  of  October  (six  weeks  after  the 
fall  of  Rome)  a  decree  was  issued  in  the 
name  of  "  the  pious,  prosperous,  victorious, 
and  triumphant  emperors,"  appointing  the 
tribune  Marcellinus  to  convoke  and  preside 
at  such  a  conference  at  Carthage. 

And  towards  the  end  of  May,  411  ,  Car- 
thage began  to  stir  with  an  unusual  ex- 
citement. The  Donatists  had  sent  the 
summons  of  Marcellinus  into  every  village 
of  Africa,  and  the  aged  and  infirm  were 
implored  to  spend  their  last  strength  in  an 
effort  to  reach  the  conference ;  some  of 
them  died  on  the  way.  A  long  procession 
of  two  hundred  and  seventy-nine  bish- 
ops, with  thousands  of  their  supporters, 
marched  proudly  into  Carthage  towards  the 
end  of  May.  All  the  chroniclers  are  Catho- 
lics, and  we  are  assured  that  the  Cascilian- 
ists  gathered  two  hundred  and  eighty-six 
bishops  without  straining  their  resources. 
The  question  ot  numbers  was  admitted 
to  be  of  importance  on  both  sides,  and  it 


J 


1 6  St.  Augustine 


would  be  interesting  to  know  the  date 
of  the  ordination  of  many  of  these  bish- 
ops. It  was  at  least  made  clear  at  the 
conference  that  the  Catholics  had  in 
places  two  or  three  bishops  within  the 
limits  of  one  Donatist  par&cia.  A  further 
interesting  circumstance  seems  to  be  sug- 
gested by  the  records.  On  the  day  the 
conference  opened  the  Donatists  were  jubi- 
lant at  finding  they  were  in  the  majority, 
only  two  hundred  and  sixty-six  Catholic 
bishops  having  signed  the  response,  but 
they  were  greatly  distressed  to  see  twenty 
new  bishops  appear  on  the  Catholic  side 
when  the  roll  was  called.  It  looks  very 
much  as  if  the  twenty  were  kept  in  hiding 
so  as  to  give  the  Donatists  a  false  security. 
Augustine  also  tells  that  he  and  a  few  others 
were  discussing  the  situation  a  few  days 
before  the  conference,  and  they  doubted  if 
more  than  one  or  two  of  their  colleagues 
would  express  a  willingness  to  resign  if  the 
verdict  were  given  to  the  Donatists.  To 
his  surprise,  all  expressed  such  a  willing- 
ness when  a  meeting  was  held  to  discuss 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  zl7 

the  point.  Thus  the  Catholics  were  able  to 
make  the  magnanimous  offer  of  resigning 
their  sees  if  the  Donatists  proved  their 
point,  and  sharing  their  ministry  with  their 
rivals  if  they  themselves  secured  the  ver- 
dict. Probably  the  only  impression  this 
generous  offer  made  on  the  Donatists  was 
the  opposite  to  what  Augustine  intended. 
Those  who  lived  with  Augustine  would  feel 
no  less  than  we  do  to-day  that  he  would 
have  thought  it  a  sacrilege  seriously  to  en- 
tertain the  idea  of  losing  his  case  and  resign- 
ing his  charge.  It  is  difficult  to  see  where 
the  Donatists  found  a  source  of  hope. 
Marcellinus  was  a  zealous  Catholic,  and 
was  much  influenced  by  Augustine;  and  of 
the  imperial  inclination  there  could  be  no1 
doubt.  It  is  true  that  Marcellinus  offered  to 
retire  if  the  Donatists  desired  another  judge; 
but  the  tone  of  their  reply,  declining  his 
offer,  shows  that  they  had  no  hope  of  se- 
curing an  impartial  judge.  The  debate  was 
a  farce,  and  the  verdict  a  foregone  con- 
clusion. 
On  the  first  of  June  the  conference  opened 


3*8  St.  Augustine 

at  the  Gargilian  baths  in  the  centre  of  the 
city.  The  Catholics  had  proposed  that  only 
seven  speakers  and  seven  consulters  for 
each  party,  with  four  bishops  to  control 
the  notarii,  should  take  part  in  the  con- 
ference. This  was  rejected  by  the  Dona- 
tists,  who  attended  in  full  force,  and  insisted 
on  the  attendance  of  all  their  rivals  when 
the  list  of  two  hundred  and  eighty-six 
names  was  produced.  Marcellinus  took 
the  chair,  and  was  supported  by  the  chief 
civic  officials.  When  he  saw  the  great 
throng  of  Donatist  bishops,  some  of  them 
weak  with  age  and  infirmity,  he  bade  them 
seat  themselves.  The  fanatical  group  re- 
fused to  sit  under  the  same  roof  as  the 
traditores,  and  Marcellinus  and  his  offi- 
cials politely  relinquished  their  own  seats. 
The  president  then  read  the  conditions  of 
the  conference,  and  gave  an  assurance  that 
the  losers  would  suffer  no  violence  for  their 
zeal. 

It  would  be  of  little  interest  to  follow  the 
course  of  the  conference  in  detail.  The 
official  notaries  were  supplemented  by  four 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  319 

representing  each  party,  and  controlled  by 
four  bishops,  so  that  we  have  a  verbatim 
report  of  the  proceedings,  each  speech  being 
signed  by  the  speaker.  The  first  day  was 
wasted  in  a  quarrel  about  names  and  num- 
bers, each  side  being  now  eager  to  prove 
how  many  bishops  it  had  left  at  home.  The 
second  day  was  equally  unprofitable.  On 
the  third  day  the  tactics  of  the  Donatists 
were  cleverly  met  by  Augustine  and  Mar- 
cellinus,  and  a  long  debate  ensued.  Pe- 
tilian,  the  ex-lawyer,  was  the  leader  of  the 
schismatics,  and  the  "  conference"  was  lit- 
tle more  than  a  warm  encounter  between 
him  and  Augustine.  He  first  claimed  that 
the  period  assigned  in  the  Emperor's  decree 
had  elapsed  before  the  date  of  the  con- 
ference, but  Marcellinus  rejected  his  diffi- 
culty. Then  he  claimed  that,  the  Catholics 
having  demanded  the  conference,  the  Do- 
natists, as  defendants,  had  a  legal  right  to 
discuss  the  character  of  the  plaintiffs.  This 
was  met  by  the  production  of  a  petition 
for  a  conference  which  the  Donatists  had 
presented  in  406.     However,  Petilian  was 


320  St.  Augustine 

eager  to  discredit  his  great  rival  by  reviv- 
ing the  old  calumny  of  the  philtre.  After  a 
nervous  duel  with  Augustine  —  Marcellinus 
interfering  in  such  a  way  that  a  distinguished 
prelate  said,  rather  profanely:  "You  take 
good  care  to  defend  them,  by  God  !" — he 
hissed  out  the  question  that  burned  on 
his  lips  :  "  Who  ordained  you  ?  "  Another 
bishop  added,  amidst  great  uproar  (little 
Alypius  meanwhile  demanding  that  the 
noise  be  put  on  the  records),  the  Pauline 
depreciation  of  mere  learning:  "  Though 
ye  have  ten  thousand  pedagogues,  yet  not 
many  fathers. "  Augustine  shirked  the  ques- 
tion at  first;  but  as  it  was  repeated  from  all 
sides,  he  at  length  boldly  stated  that  it  was 
Megalius,  and  challenged  them  to  discuss 
it.  However,  Marcellinus  ruled  the  per- 
sonal discussion  out  of  order,  and  at  last 
dragged  the  bishops  to  the  question  at 
issue.  The  Catholics  tried  to  introduce  the 
fact  of  their  communion  with  the  "  churches 
beyond  the  sea  "  (again  laying  no  particular 
stress  on  the  judgment  of  the  Bishop  of 
Rome),  but  the  Donatists  at  once  protested, 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  321 

and  the  point  was  abandoned  without  diffi- 
culty. "  It  was  not  a  question  of  the  whole 
world,  but  an  African  question,"  said  the 
Donatists  ;  "the  churches  beyond  the  seas 
must  wait  and  communicate  with  the  vic- 
tors." Then  the  formal  issue  was  discussed 
in  the  light  of  Scripture  and  history.  The 
conference  had  begun  in  the  early  morning, 
and  it  was  growing  dusk  when  Marcellinus 
closed  the  discussion  and  cleared  the  room 
for  the  writing  of  the  verdict.  The  Dona- 
tists had  quickly  abandoned  the  compli- 
mentary way  in  which  they  addressed  him 
on  the  first  day,  and  they  were  probably 
under  no  illusion  when  they  were  recalled 
to  hear  his  sentence.  The  Catholics  had 
proved  their  case  to  his  satisfaction;  the 
Donatists  were  to  hand  over  their  churches 
to  the  Catholics,  and  they  were  forbidden 
to  hold  further  meetings. 

In  the  following  year  Honorius  renewed 
his  law  against  the  Donatists,  and  in  414 
(the  death  of  Marcellinus  reviving  their 
hopes)  he  passed  a  fierce  and  brutal  law, 
doubling    the    fines    imposed    on    them, 


322  St.  Augustine 

excluding  them  from  the  testamentary  ad- 
vantages and  from  courts  of  law,  branding 
them  with  "  perpetual  infamy, "and  banish- 
ing their  obstinate  clergy.  The  schism  now 
entered  upon  its  last  and  most  bloody 
stage.  The  outlaws  became  fiercely  indif- 
ferent to  life.  They  flung  themselves 
down  precipices  —  it  was  "  a  daily  game  " 
of  theirs,  pleasantly  says  Augustine  (Ep. 
185).  They  assailed  armed  groups  of  pa- 
gans and  Catholics,  and  fought  them  to  the 
death.  They  met  travellers  on  the  country 
roads,  and  threatened  to  kill  them  if  they 
did  not  inflict  martyrdom  on  their  strange 
accosters.  One  of  Augustine's  priests  was 
murdered  by  them.  When  these  suicides 
were  pointed  out  to  Augustine,  he  coldly 
replied  (Ep.  204)  that  they  did  not  move 
him;  it  was  better,  he  said,  that  these  few 
whom  God  had  predestined  to  hell  should 
perish  than  that  all  should  be  damned  for 
want  of  coercion.  Yet  even  he  shuddered 
sometimes  at  sight  of  the  spectre  he  had 
raised.  We  often  find  him  pleading  with 
the  officials  to  refrain  from  violent  retalia- 


Augustine  and  the  Donatist  Schism  323 

tion,   and   especially  from  capital  punish- 
ment.1 

The  Donatists  struggled  for  many  years 
under  the  heel  of  the  law.  In  418  we  find 
Augustine  attempting  to  draw  Emeritus,  the 
former  Donatist  bishop  of  Cassarea,  into  a 
debate  in  what  had  once  been  his  own 
church.  The  embittered  old  man  would  not 
deign  to  speak.  In  the  same  year  we  hear 
of  a  meeting  of  some  thirty  Donatist  bish- 
ops, under  the  resolute  Petilian,  to  discover 
new  ways  of  evading  the  laws.  Two  years 
afterwards  Augustine  writes  to  remonstrate 
with  a  Donatist  bishop  who  has  shut 
himself  in  his  church  with  his  flock,  and 
threatened  to  set  fire  to  it,  when  the  of- 
ficials come  to  apply  the  law. 


1  To  this  extent  Gibbon  is  wrong  when  he  says  that  the  persecution 
of  the  Donatists  had  Augustine's  "warmest  approbation."  It  had 
his  approval  only  up  to  a  certain  point,  and  it  was  years  before  he 
overcame  his  feeling  of  humanity  so  far  as  to  give  this  qualified  ap- 
proval. Yet,  if  Augustine  had  persisted  in  his  opposition,  it  is  not 
likely  the  persecuting  laws  would  have  been  given  to  Africa,  and  so 
one  cannot  say  with  Poujoulat  that  Gibbon  is  "grossly  unjust"  to 
Augustine.  Gibbon  is  also  wrong  (though  not  so  "  profoundly  ignor- 
ant "  as  Poujoulat  would  have  him)  when  he  says  that,  as  a  result  of 
the  great  conference  of  411,  three  hundred  Donatist  bishops  and 
thousands  of  their  inferior  clergy  were  stripped  of  their  offices  and 


324  St.  Augustine 

The  Vandals  found  the  sect  still  struggling 
when  they  invaded  Africa  and  laid  the 
proud  structure  of  its  rivals  in  ruins.  There 
was  a  brief  and  limited  revival  at  the  end  of 
the  sixth  century,  but  the  remarkable  sect 
only  perished  finally  in  the  universal  de- 
vastation of  the  Mohammedan  invasion.1 

banished.  We  do  not  know  how  many  (though  we  know  that  very 
many)  of  their  bishops  accepted  the  offer  of  the  Catholics;  and  the 
proportion  of  clergy  to  bishops  was  not  so  great  as  Gibbon  supposes 
—  besides  that,  their  "sees"  were  often  very  small  matters. 

1 1  dare  not  pursue  the  subject,  or  I  would  point  out  the  gross 
fallacy  that  lies  in  the  historic  comparison  of  the  position  of  the 
Church  of  England  with  that  of  the  Donatists.  But  a  discerning  and 
impartial  reader  will  probably  perceive  from  the  foregoing  sketch  that 
if  there  be  a  parallel  at  all,  it  lies  between  the  Roman  Church  in  Eng- 
land and  the  Donatist  in  Africa.  It  is  the  Romanists  who  reject  the 
validity  of  their  rival's  sacraments  and  "  raise  altar  against  altar."  The 
question  of  union  with  "the  churches  beyond  the  seas  "  was  a  minor 
point  with  the  Africans;  nor  is  the  Church  of  England  by  any  means 
so  isolated  as  was  that  of  the  Donatists.  Finally,  Christianity  was 
then  a  loose  federation  of  churches,  with  only  a  broad  agreement  in 
dogma  and  ritual,  and  without  a  shadow  of  a"  supreme  head." 


Chapter    XII 

The  Dying  of  Paganism 

T  HAVE  already  observed  that  Augustine 
*  paid  far  less  attention  to  the  old  national 
religion  than  to  the  heresies  which  sprang 
up  within  the  Church.  Only  one  work, 
the  City  of  God,  out  of  his  innumerable  pro- 
ductions was  directed  against  it;  and  this 
was  occasioned  rather  by  the  turn  of  po- 
litical events  than  by  theological  contro- 
versy. The  few  letters  in  which  he  further 
deals  with  paganism  were  elicited  by  corre- 
spondents, and  the  allusions  in  his  sermons 
belong  rather  to  moral  than  to  dogmatic 
theology.  Wherever  he  does  confront  it 
intellectually  he  pours  a  bitter  and  unspar- 
ing scorn  upon  it,  but  he  usually  ignores 
it  altogether.  It  is  true  that  some  of  the 
most  cultured  of  his  correspondents  profess 
allegiance  to  it.     With  these  he  is  usually 

325 


326  St.  Augustine 

content  to  advance  the  claims  of  Christ- 
ianity; and  indeed  they  generally  make  it 
sufficiently  clear  that  they  are  monotheists, 
with  an  historic  and  politic  attachment  to 
a  Neo-Platonic  conception  of  the  Olympian 
system.  Nevertheless,  Augustine's  career 
coincides  with  the  downfall  of  the  old 
religion,  and  it  is  interesting  to  study  his 
attitude  towards  it  in  the  successive  phases 
of  its  disappearance. 

We  left  the  old  Roman  religion,  a  few 
chapters  back,  severely  stricken  by  the  laws 
of  Gratian  and  the  influence  of  St.  Ambrose. 
When  Augustine  left  Rome  the  national 
cult  seemed  to  be  breaking  up  rapidly. 
Prastextatus  was  dead,  and  Symmachus 
had  withdrawn  from  the  struggle.  In  the 
East  Theodosius  was  putting  decree  after 
decree  in  the  hands  of  the  bishops  and  the 
monks,  the  ready  executors  of  the  imperial 
will.  In  381,  383,  385,  391,  and  392  laws 
were  passed  against  the  priests  and  the 
adherents  of  the  old  religion,  and  armies 
of  fanatical  monks  wandered  over  the  pro- 
vinces,  leaving  mounds  of  smoking  ruins 


The  Dying  of  Paganism  327 

where  the  piety  of  their  fathers  had  gath- 
ered the  wealth  and  the  art  of  the  world. 
The  great  temple  of  Serapis  at  Alexandria 
fell  before  an  ignorant  mob,  led  by  Bishop 
Theophilus,  in  389.  In  Syria  the  finest 
temples  were  laid  in  ruins.  Arcadius  con- 
tinued the  work  of  Theodosius;  in  395,  396, 
397,  and  399  he  issued  decrees  for  the  de- 
struction of  the  temples  and  the  abolition 
of  the  pagan  religion,  only  departing  from 
the  fervour  of  his  predecessor  by  a  shrewd 
direction  that  the  material  of  the  destroyed 
temples  be  used  for  the  construction  of 
roads  and  bridges.  Throughout  the  East- 
ern Empire  Christianity  made  rapid  progress 
with  the  aid  of  such  legislation.  If  in 
Rome,  as  Symmachus  said,  "to  desert  the 
altars  was  a  new  kind  of  ambition,"  it  will 
readily  be  understood  that  the  temptation 
was  stronger  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Chris- 
tian court  at  Alexandria.1  The  pagan  tradi- 
tion was  utterly  broken.    Every  earthquake, 

1  At  the  same  time,  there  were  pagans  in  high  office  even  in  the  East, 
and  a  considerable  licence  was  permitted  the  pagan  writers  of  the 
Eastern  Empire. 


328  St.  Augustine 


pestilence,     or    other     striking     calamity, 
brought  thousands  into  the  new  religion. 

In  the  West  the  suppression  of  paganism 
was  by  no  means  so  smooth  a  process. 
Valentinian  II.  had,  as  has  been  stated, 
continued  the  policy  of  Gratian,  confiscat- 
ing the  revenues  of  the  clergy  and  temples, 
and  withdrawing  the  last  shred  of  im- 
perial patronage  from  the  old  religion.  The 
Christian  leaders  had  pleasantly  assured  the 
pagans  that  they  had  no  ground  for  com- 
plaint, since  the  new  laws  merely  brought 
about  a  condition  of  equality  between  the 
two  religions.  But  this  "equality"  was 
soon  discovered  by  Ambrose  to  be  itself 
inconsistent  with  the  dignity  of  Christianity. 
In  391  Valentinian  was  induced  to  pass 
another  law,  in  which  he  commanded  the 
pagan  temples  to  be  closed  and  all  sacrifices 
to  be  discontinued.  In  the  following  year 
the  young  Emperor  was  put  to  death  by 
one  of  his  generals,  and  a  rhetorician,  Eu- 
genius,  was  clothed  with  the  purple.  This 
gave  fresh  hope  and  courage  to  the  rem- 
nants of  the    pagan  aristocracy.     Nicom- 


The  Dying  of  Paganism  329 

achus  Flavianus,  the  third  of  the  great 
pagans  of  the  time,  a  pontiff  and  consul 
designate,  at  once  threw  himself  with  fer- 
vour into  the  new  agitation,  and  espoused 
the  cause  of  Eugenius.  After  two  fruitless 
legations,  Flavianus  himself  and  Argobastes 
(the  Gothic  general  who  had  set  Eugenius 
on  the  throne)  approached  the  new  Emperor, 
and  obtained  permission  to  restore  the 
famous  statue  of  Victory  to  the  senate. 
The  pagans  saw  an  opportunity  of  escaping 
from  the  persecuting  laws  of  Valentinian 
under  the  more  accommodating  Eugenius, 
and  they  threw  in  their  lot  with  the  usurper. 
There  was  a  great  revival  of  the  old  religion 
at  Rome.  The  temples  were  reopened. 
The  victims  were  laid  on  the  altars  again, 
and  the  incense  rose  from  every  part  of 
Rome.  The  stream  that  had  begun  to  flow 
towards  the  Vatican  was  diverted  once 
more.  The  new  lease  of  life  given  to  the 
old  religion  was  of  most  uncertain  duration; 
for,  although  Theodosius  had  at  first  ex- 
changed presents  with  the  puppet  of  Ar- 
gobastes, it  soon  became  known  that  he 


33°  St.  Augustine 

was  preparing  an  expedition  into  Italy. 
Yet  there  was  widespread  apostasy  from 
the  Christian  Church,  and  nearly  the  whole 
of  the  nobility  welcomed  the  restoration  of 
the  genial  Olympians.  The  Christian  lead- 
ers were  sorely  perplexed;  it  was  impos- 
sible to  forecast  the  issue  of  the  struggle 
with  Theodosius.  Ambrose  wavered  piti- 
fully. He  fled  from  Milan  to  avoid  a  meeting 
with  Eugenius,  yet  wrote  a  most  respect- 
ful and  friendly  letter  to  him,  in  which 
the  usurpation  is  described  as  "when 
thy  clemency  assumed  the  charge  of  the 
Empire."1 

The  triumph  of  the  pagan  Romans  and 
the  perplexity  of  the  Christian  prelates  were 
not  of  long  duration.    Theodosius  quickly 

1  Compare  the  politic  character  of  his  panegyric  on  Valentinian, 
where  he  "  will  not  discuss  the  celerity  of  his  death  !  "  In  an  earlier 
chapter  1  have  had  to  point  out  Gibbon's  unjust  severity  against 
Ambrose;  here  it  is  necessary  to  say  that  he  errs  still  more  in  the 
opposite  direction.  He  says  (iii.,  402):  "The  inflexible  courage  of 
Ambrose  alone  had  resisted  the  claims  of  successful  usurpation."  The 
above  qualification  of  the  "  usurpation  "  would  hardly  require  an  in- 
flexible courage.  But  as  Gibbon  adds  that  Ambrose  "  declined  his 
correspondence,"  it  would  seem  that  he  has  strangely  overlooked  the 
letter  to  Eugenius  (No.  57,  Migne  edition).  Beugnot,  who  is  by  no 
means  prejudiced  in  favour  of  paganism,  in  his  well-known  study  of  its 
fall  almost  weeps  over  the  perfidy  of  the  Bishop  of  Milan. 


The  Dying  of  Paganism  331 

followed  his  presents  to  Italy  with  a  large 
army,  and  defeated  the  usurper;  the  high- 
spirited  Flavianus  flinging  himself  on  the 
Emperor's  troops  when  he  saw  that  his 
cause  was  lost.  The  victor  was  singularly 
moderate  towards  those  who  had  supported 
Eugenius,  but  he  once  more  removed  the 
pagan  symbol  from  the  senate  and  closed 
the  temples.  The  decay  of  the  old  religion 
set  in  more  rapidly  than  ever.  Beugnot,  it 
is  true,  questions  this,  but  the  inscriptions 
he  gives  after  394  are  not  convincing,  so  far 
as  any  large  exercise  of  the  old  cult  is  con- 
cerned. Schultze  and  other  recent  writers 
admit  the  statement  of  Zosimus  and  Pruden- 
tius  that  Theodosius  himself  visited  Rome 
and  harangued  the  senators  on  the  change 
of  religion.  Within  ten  years  we  find 
Jerome  writing  (Ep.  107)  that  "the  Capitol 
is  squalid  and  deserted;  the  temples  of 
Rome  are  covered  with  dust  and  cobwebs; 
and  the  pagan  gods  keep  their  lonely  vigils 
on  the  roofs  with  the  bats  and  the  owls." 
There  was  one  later  revival  of  the  old  re- 
ligion at  Rome  before  the  final  catastrophe, 


332  St.  Augustine 

as  we  shall  see,  but  it  begins  to  sink  in 
earnest  from  394.  The  chief  struggle  takes 
place  henceforth  in  the  provinces,  and  we 
may  transfer  our  attention  to  Africa  once 
more. 

When  Theodosius  died,  his  sons  were 
mere  children.  Arcadius,  who  ruled  the 
East,  was  in  his  eighteenth  year,  and  Hon- 
orius  in  his  eleventh.  The  Western  Em- 
pire, therefore,  was  virtually  ruled  by  the 
great  Gothic  general,  Stilicho,  into  whose 
charge  Honorius  had  been  given.  Stilicho 
was  not  disposed  to  distract  the  Empire 
with  further  religious  struggles,  and  for 
several  years  the  condition  of  the  pagans 
was  not  very  onerous.  In  398,  however, 
he  began  a  series' of  persecuting  measures, 
and  there  is  reason  to  think  that  Augustine 
had  some  share  in  bringing  about  the  un- 
happy change  of  policy.  During  the  few 
years  between  his  ordination  and  398  we 
find  Augustine  very  little  concerned  about 
paganism.  In  his  sermons  he  frequently 
scolds  his  congregation  for  taking  part  in 
the  pagan  festivals,  but  on  the  whole  he 


The  Dying  of  Paganism  333 

seems  to  regard  the  old  religion  as  quietly 
dying.  But  in  398  he  was  alarmed  to  no- 
tice a  great  animation  amongst  the  pagans. 
Some  zealot  had  composed  a  Greek  verse, 
purporting  to  be  the  utterance  of  one  of  the 
sacred  oracles,  which  predicted  the  down- 
fall of  Christianity  in  398.  The  pseudo- 
oracle  represented  Christ  as  an  innocent 
enthusiast,  but  said  that  Peter  had  procured 
by  magical  arts  a  triumph  of  365  years  for 
the  Galilean  religion.  Counting  the  period 
from  the  year  33  of  the  current  era,  the  date 
of  the  breaking  of  the  spell  would  fall  in 
398.  In  that  year,  therefore,  the  pagans 
became  unusually  active  and  spirited,  and 
the  bishops  of  the  African  Church  began 
their  unhappy  appeal  to  the  secular  arm. 
In  the  case  of  the  pagans,  at  least,  there 
was  no  room  for  an  accusation  of  violence. 
However,  in  398  we  seem  to  find  Augustine 
speaking,  without  a  shade  of  hesitation,  of 
recourse  to  repressive  legislation.1     Some 

1  The  reader  may  remember  that  I  have  already  represented  Augus- 
tine as  writing,  about  398  (in  his  Contra  Partem  Donati),  that  he 
disliked  the  idea  of  secular  coercion  in  the  matter  of  the  Donatists. 
Yet  the  sermon  I  am  going  to  quote  was  quite  certainly  delivered 


334  St.  Augustine 

time  in  that  year  we  find  him  preaching 
(Sermon  24)  to  a  Carthaginian  congregation 
on  the  pagan  religion.  The  pagans  had 
obtained  permission  from  an  indulgent  offi- 
cial to  gild  the  beard  of  their  great  Hercules, 
but  their  rejoicing  was  brought  to  a  sad 
termination  when  it  was  found  that  a 
Christian  had  contrived  to  shave  the  im- 
potent hero  during  the  night.  The  Christ- 
ians gather  at  their  basilica  in  great  joy, 
and  Augustine  laughs  and  jokes  with  them 
over  the  adventure.  He  tells  them  that  at 
Rome  the  old  worship  has  been  abolished, 
and  immediately  the  church  rings  with  cries 
of  "  Let  us  do  here  what  has  been  done  at 
Rome!"  Augustine  approves  and  encour- 
ages their  zeal,  but  appeals  for  orderly  pro- 
cedure. "Trust  us,  your  pastors,"  he  says: 
"you  will  soon  see  whether  we  do  our 
duty  or  not."  The  first  law  of  Honorius  (or 
Stilicho)  against  the  old  religion  falls  in  the 

before  399.  It  implies  a  large  and  public  exercise  of  the  pagan  cult  at 
Carthage  and  the  absence  of  any  repressive  laws.  This  condition  was 
not  found  after  399.  The  explanation  seems  to  be  that  Augustine 
wavered  for  some  years  before  his  definitive  declaration  in  favour  of 
persecution. 


The  Dying  of  Paganism  335 

year  398,  and  so  we  are  compelled  to  con- 
clude that  Augustine  and  the  Carthaginian 
bishops  started  the  persecution  of  the  old 
religion  in  Africa. 

The  law  of  398  is  not  extant,  but  the  fact 
of  its  having  been  given  is  inferred  from  the 
terms  of  the  law  of  399,  which  probably 
repeats  its  enactments.  The  hope  of  the  pa- 
gans was  heavily  and  promptly  cast  down. 
As  they  peered  anxiously  over  the  sea  for 
the  first  heralds  of  the  revival  at  Rome, 
there  came,  instead,  two  high  imperial  offi- 
cers with  orders  to  close  the  temples  and 
abolish  the  sacrifices  for  ever.  The  summit 
of  Olympus  flashed  out  no  thunder  whilst 
Gaudentius  and  Jovius  went  from  street  to 
street  of  Carthage  and  sealed  the  doors  of 
the  temples.  The  great  temple  of  the 
Ccelestis  had  been  closed  for  some  years, 
and  huge  thistles  or  cacti  had  sprung  up 
in  its  splendid  avenue.  The  pagans  were 
consoled  to  believe  that  dragons  lurked  in 
this  small  forest,  and  guarded  the  deserted 
building;  but  one  morning  they  awoke  to  a 
painful  disillusion,  for  great  golden  letters 


336  St.  Augustine 

announced  on  its  front  that  "  Aurelius  dedi- 
cated this  temple  to  Christian  worship," 
and  the  Christian  mob  poured  up  the  sacred 
enclosure  with  wild  rejoicing.  A  chronicler 
of  the  time  (Pseudo-Prosper)  speaks  of  tem- 
ples being  closed  and  sacrifices  abolished 
throughout  Africa  in  399.  Augustine  pict- 
ures the  Caecilianists  and  the  Donatists 
working  in  Christian  unison  at  the  work  of 
destruction,  dragging  the  marble  statues  into 
the  streets  and  breaking  them  into  fragments, 
smashing  the  flutes  and  other  musical  in- 
struments of  the  pagan  service,  and  even 
laying  the  temples  themselves  in  ruins.  So 
zealous  was  the  execution  of  the  law  that  a 
second  rescript  was  forwarded  to  the  Afri- 
can proconsul,  directing  that  the  temples 
should  be  stripped,  but  not  destroyed,  and 
that  the  sacred  games  and  banquets  were 
not  to  be  prohibited.  The  African  bishops 
were  dissatisfied  with  the  restriction,  and 
in  400  we  find  them  petitioning  the  Court 
for  the  suppression  of  the  sacred  games  and 
banquets  (under  the  pretext  that  Christians 
were  morally  compelled  to  attend  them  at 


The  Dying  of  Paganism  337 

times  and  hear  their  faith  reviled)  and  the 
destruction  of  the  remaining  temples.  A 
letter  of  Augustine's  (No.  50),  which  Ba- 
ronius  assigns,  with  some  probability,  to 
this  date,  indicates  both  the  confusion  which 
these  laws  produced  and  Augustine's  atti- 
tude towards  them.  At  Suffecte  the  Christ- 
ians had  been  inspired  by  the  law  to 
destroy  a  statue  of  Hercules,  which  was 
held  in  great  veneration  by  their  pagan 
neighbours.  The  very  natural  result  was  a 
sanguinary  riot.  How  many  of  the  poor 
pagans  fell  in  the  conflict  the  chroniclers  do 
not  deign  to  inform  us;  but  the  "  Roman  Mar- 
tyrology "  still  reverently  announces,  year 
by  year,  that  sixty  Christians  were  "mar- 
tyred" on  the  occasion.  The  municipal 
officers  were  made  responsible  for  the  event, 
and  they  seem  to  have  written  to  Augus- 
tine to  plead  the  extenuating  circumstance 
of  the  loss  of  their  Hercules.  Augustine 
replies  with  much  cheap  irony  and  con- 
tempt. He  does  not  fail  to  point  the  trite 
but  dangerous  moral  of  the  helplessness  of 
their  deity,  and  promises  they  shall  have 


33%  St.  Augustine 

another  when  they  have  restored  the  sixty 
Christian  souls.  Other  letters  of  his  to 
pagan  correspondents  are  of  still  more  un- 
certain date,  and  therefore  cannot  be  used 
to  illustrate  the  development  of  his  feelings. 
There  is  one  (No.  232)  to  the  leading  offi- 
cials of  Madaura,  the  scene  of  his  early 
studies.  They  seem  to  have  recollected  his 
obligation  to  their  town,  and  written  to  ask 
a  certain  favour  of  him.  In  a  spirit  of 
friendly  accommodation  and  up-to-dateness 
they  greeted  him  as  their  "father"  and 
closed  with  the  admirable  salutation:  "We 
wish,  in  God  and  His  Christ,  that  thou 
mayst  live  happily  for  many  years  with  thy 
clergy."  Augustine  did  as  they  asked  him, 
but  he  read  them  a  severe  lesson  on  what 
he  insisted  on  regarding  as  the  mockery  of 
their  salutation.  But  there  are  one  or  two 
letters  of  uncertain  date  in  which  he  argues 
temperately  and  courteously  with  cultured 
Neo-Platonists,  who  defend  the  old  regime. 
This  condition  of  affairs  lasted  until  408, 
the  bishops  everywhere  impelling  the  re- 
luctant officials  to  put  into  execution  the 


The  Dying  of  Paganism  339 

imperial  edicts.  In  that  year,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  brave  and  capable  Stilicho,  the 
last  hope  of  the  falling  Empire,  was  exe- 
cuted in  prison  at  Ravenna.  At  the  first 
rumour  of  his  death  new  life  was  infused 
into  the  sullen  remnants  of  the  pagans  and 
the  Donatists.  Stilicho  was  the  author  of 
the  laws  that  had  been  issued  in  the  name 
of  the  fatuous  young  Emperor,  and  it  was 
hoped  that  his  disgrace  implied  a  change  of 
policy.  It  is  true  that  his  successor,  Olym- 
pus, was  a  Christian,  but  that  circumstance 
afforded  no  certain  indication  of  his  atti- 
tude, and  the  pagans  raised  their  heads 
once  more.  But  Augustine  and  the  African 
bishops  were  by  this  time  accomplished 
politicians.  I  have  already  related  how  they 
approached  Olympus,  and  secured  a  con- 
tinuance of  the  coercive  policy.  Stilicho 
was  put  to  death  in  September;  in  Decem- 
ber a  fresh  series  of  decrees  reaffirmed  and 
enlarged  the  existing  laws.  The  annona 
templorum, — the  fund  which  maintained  the 
sacred  games  and  banquets, — the  last  source 
of  pagan  revenue,  was  appropriated  to  the 


34°  St.  Augustine 

support  of  the  army.  Statues  and  altars 
were  to  be  destroyed,  and  temples  con- 
verted to  municipal  use.  The  bishops  were 
empowered  to  see  that  the  law  was  exe- 
cuted, and  heavy  fines  were  imposed  on 
negligent  magistrates.  A  second  decree  of 
the  same  month  aimed  at  the  more  dis- 
tinguished pagans,  by  excluding  from  the 
service  of  the  Emperor  "all  enemies  of  the 
Catholic  faith."1  That  the  earlier  laws 
were  far  from  uniformly  enforced  is  clear 
from  an  incident  we  learn  from  Augustine's 
letters.  On  the  ist  of  June  of  the  year  408 
the  pagans  of  Calama  celebrated  their  feast 
of  Flora  with  the  usual  licentious  dances  of 
the  meretrices  in  the  streets.  They  ma- 
liciously directed  their  procession  before  the 
door  of  the  Catholic  basilica,  and  a  few 

1  Gibbon  says  this  decree  was  rigorously  applied,  whilst  M. 
Beugnot,  a  high  authority  in  this  province,  says  it  was  at  once  re- 
pealed on  the  resignation  of  Gennerid.  This  pagan  officer  of  high 
rank  was  assured  by  Honorius  that  the  imperial  eye  was  blind  to  the 
heterodoxy  of  those  who  were  particularly  useful  to  the  State,  but  he 
nobly  refused  an  exemption.  Beugnot  seems  to  mistranslate  Zosimus 
when  he  says  "  //  ne  perdit  pas  son  grade."  The  words  of  the 
historian  are:  "  xal  ovk  aWooi  dyreXafisTO  rrjS  apx*?**,  £caS  d 
(3a6i\£vS  E7tav6ev  rdv  vo/xov,"  etc.,  which  would  admit  an 
interval  of  several  years. 


The  Dying  of  Paganism  341 

zealous  Christian  stones  precipitated  a  riot, 
in  which  a  Christian  was  killed  and  Pos- 
sidius  (Bishop  of  the  place)  had  to  fly  for 
his  life.  He  fled,  of  course,  to  Hippo,  and 
Augustine  directed  him  to  Ravenna.  In  the 
meantime,  an  elderly  official  of  the  town, 
Nectarius,  humbly  begged  Augustine's  in- 
tercession for  his  heated  fellow -citizens. 
Augustine  (Epp.  91  and  104)  merely  pro- 
mised that  the  imperial  "  medicine  "  should 
be  administered  with  moderation;  but  as 
Possidius  reached  the  Court  in  troubled 
days,  it  is  probable  that  the  delinquents 
escaped  altogether.  However,  the  law  of 
408  was  put  in  the  hands  of  the  bishops, 
and  the  licentious  Floralia  and  Saturnalia 
quickly  gave  way  to  the  more  orthodox 
festivals  of  Pentecost  and  Christmas. 

I  have  explained  in  the  preceding  chapter 
how  the  triumph  of  the  hierarchy  was 
rudely  interrupted  in  the  middle  of  the  fol- 
lowing year  by  the  receipt  of  a  reactionary 
decree  which  directed,  to  their  grief  and 
indignation,  that  "in  future  no  one  was  to 
be  compelled  against  his  will  to  accept  the 


342  St.  Augustine 

Christian  religion. "  Whilst  rival  theologians 
were  puzzling  their  brains  over  the  designs 
of  Jupiter  or  Jehovah,  the  formidable  Alaric 
and  his  army  of  Goths  were  making  sad 
havoc  of  the  imperial  intentions.  The  reign 
of  Olympus  was  speedily  cut  short  by  dis- 
grace and  death.  The  pagan  Jovius  suc- 
ceeded to  his  office,  and  the  Gothic  army 
became  masters  of  Rome.  A  Greek  pagan, 
Attalus,  who  had  recently  received  a  diplo- 
matic Arian  baptism,  was  clothed  with  the 
purple  by  Alaric,  and  accepted  by  the  sen- 
ate; and  the  prefecture  of  the  city  was 
given  to  the  pagan  Lampadius.  Once  more 
the  smoke  of  a  thousand  altars  hovered  over 
the  Eternal  City,  and  the  stately  processions 
ascended  the  Capitol  and  the  Palatine. 
Nearly  the  whole  of  Rome  applauded  the 
revival.  M.  Beugnot  sheds  bitter  tears  over 
the  "infamy"  and  "perjury"  of  the  senat- 
ors. Honorius  meekly  offered  to  share  his 
empire  with  Attalus,  but  the  Greek  haugh- 
tily informed  him  that  his  generosity  was 
superfluous,  and  clemently  permitted  him 
to  retire  to  some  obscure  island  with  his 


The  Dying  of  Paganism  343 

precious  poultry.    The  odds  ran  strongly  in 
favor  of  Jupiter. 

But  the  Africans  had  barely  time  to  ac- 
quaint themselves  fully  with  the  latest  de- 
cree of  Providence  when  there  came  the 
dignified  retractation  of  the  privilege  of 
following  one's  conscience  in  matters  of 
religion,  which  I  have  given  previously. 
Just  as  the  wretched  Honorius  was  about  to 
yield,  he  received  six  cohorts  from  the  East, 
and  was  enabled  to  fortify  Ravenna  against 
the  terrible  Goth.  Moreover,  Jupiter  had 
forfeited  his  last  chance  by  deceiving  the 
augurs  of  Attalus.  The  possession  of  Africa 
was  of  vital  importance  to  the  parasitic 
capital;  but,  on  the  faith  of  the  augurs'  re- 
port, Attalus  had  sent  only  a  small  contin- 
gent to  secure  it.  His  soldiers  were  cut  up 
by  the  loyal  Count  Heraclian.  The  corn- 
ships  were  stopped,  and  famine  and  plague 
spread  disaffection  in  Rome.  Attalus  was 
ignominiously  stripped  of  his  purple  by  the 
Goth,  and  the  city  itself  was  taken  and  pil- 
laged by  his  soldiers  in  August,  410.  But 
Honorius  had  been  restored  to  confidence 


344  St.  Augustine 

by  the  loyalty  of  Heraclian,  and  he  fiercely 
reaffirmed  the  decrees  against  Donatists  and 
pagans. 

The  chief  idea  running  through  M.  Beu- 
gnot's  well-known  study  of  the  fall  of  pagan- 
ism is  that  it  was  the  barbarian  invasion 
which  really  crushed  the  old  religion.  He 
does  not  seem  to  have  imposed  his  theory 
to  any  large  extent.  The  weight  of  the 
later  inscriptions  he  gives,  or  of  his  inter- 
pretation of  those  inscriptions,  is  far  from 
overwhelming;  and  we  see  only  too  plainly 
in  the  course  of  his  own  narrative  the  effect 
of  thirty-five  years  of  repressive  legislation 
and  intense  proselytic  activity  on  a  nerve- 
less or  soulless  opposition.  It  is  difficult 
to  see  that  the  Gothic  invasion  of  Italy 
hastened  the  death  of  the  old  religion.  In 
Gaul,  Spain,  and  Africa  the  pagans  merely 
suffered  in  common  with  the  Trinitarian 
Christians  from  the  Arian  Goths  and  Van- 
dals ;  the  rest  of  the  barbarians,  being 
pagans,  were  hardly  likely  to  select  fel- 
low-pagans for  exceptional  punishment. 
Beugnot  thinks  that  the  disorganisation  of 


The  Dying  of  Paganism  345 

the  Empire  which  followed  the  invasion 
tended  to  make  an  end  of  the  tottering  fab- 
ric. But  modern  historians  think  this  dis- 
organisation has  been  exaggerated;  and,  in 
any  case,  it  would  paralyse  the  effective 
anti-pagan  machinery  of  Church  and  State 
much  more  severely  than  it  would  itself 
injure  the  old  religion.  The  fact  is  that  we 
find  a  momentary  revival  of  the  hopes  of 
the  pagans  after  the  fall  of  Rome,  and  then 
an  emphatic  resumption  of  the  coercive 
legislation.  The  administration  which  was 
set  up  at  Rome  after  Marie's  withdrawal  and 
death  was  largely  pagan,  and  suffered  a  last 
flicker  of  the  old  religion.  This  was  re- 
pressed as  soon  as  the  Court  resumed  con- 
trol, and  its  extinction  practically  terminates 
the  public  exercise  of  the  pagan  worship  at 
Rome.  Individual  pagans  of  distinction  are 
met  with  long  afterwards,  it  is  true.  When 
Theodosius  II.  wrote,  "If  there  be  any 
pagans  left  (though  we  do  not  think  so)," 
he  knew  perfectly  well  that  there  were 
pagan  officers  in  his  own  palace.  But  the 
old  religion  was  virtually  extinguished  in 


346  St.  Augustine 

the  large  towns  by  415,  and  the  term 
"pagan  "  (villager)  —  already  long  in  use  — 
became  a  fairly  correct  appellation  for  its 
open  worshippers. 

In  the  provinces  paganism  prolonged  its 
struggles  far  into  the  fifth  century,  and  in 
some  places  survived  until  the  seventh.  In 
the  African  provinces  we  find  the  struggle 
proceeding  until,  in  428,  the  Vandals  put  an 
end  to  all  sectarian  strife  by  an  impartial 
devastation.  In  415  Honorius  found  it  ne- 
cessary to  renew  his  threats  and  penalties, 
for  the  pagan  sentiment  was  not  a  little 
obstinate  in  Africa  in  spite  of  the  advan- 
ces and  concessions  of  the  new  religion. 
Pseudo-Prosper  records,  in  his  entertaining 
De  Prcedictionibus,  that  on  one  occasion 
some  of  the  condemned  idols  were  found 
concealed  in  a  cave  in  one  of  the  Mauri- 
tanian  towns,  and  the  whole  city,  including 
the  clergy,  were  convicted  of  "perjury." 
In  fact,  it  would  appear  from  an  obscure 
passage  of  the  decree  of  415  that  secret 
societies  had  been  formed  amongst  the  pa- 
gans, and  the  heads  of  these  are  threat- 


The  Dying  of  Paganism         347 

ened  with  capital  punishment.  It  is  also 
indicated  that  the  pagan  pontiffs  had  re- 
turned to  the  towns,  and  the  Emperor  or- 
dered them  to  retire  to  their  native  places. 
But  the  remaining  temples  were  now  closed, 
and  all  surviving  statues  destroyed.  The 
old  religion  ceased  to  exist  as  an  organisa- 
tion in  Africa.  How  the  anti-Christian  sen- 
timent was  fostered  by  the  disasters  of 
Rome  and  encountered  by  Augustine,  I  will 
relate  in  the  next  chapter. 


Chapter  XIII 

Echoes  of  the   Fall  of  Rome 

A  RECENT  French  writer  ingeniously  con- 
**  eludes  that  Augustine's  "soul  was 
rent "  by  the  news  of  the  fall  of  Rome,  but 
he  avoided  the  subject  in  the  excessive  pain 
it  gave  him.  F.  Ozanam,  admitting,  in  a 
moment  of  rare  candour,  that  Augustine 
was  all  but  indifferent  when  the  news  ar- 
rived, thinks  that  "either  his  genius  was 
less  bound  by  an  antique  patriotism  or  love 
had  raised  it  to  calmer  heights. "  The  hagio- 
graphers  are  equally  conflicting.  The  truth 
is  that  Augustine  had  scarcely  a  spark  of 
human  sympathy  with  the  disasters  of 
Rome.  The  sermon  (De  Urbis  Excidio) 
which  he  preached  on  the  receipt  of  the 
news  expresses  only  an  eagerness  to  draw 
spiritual  profit  from  the  event.  In  a  later 
sermon  (105),  when  he  returns  to  his  theme, 

343 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome       349 

he  observes  that  his  hearers  are  saying 
openly:  "Oh!  why  does  he  not  cease  to 
talk  of  Rome? — "  and  he  is  obliged  to  disavow 
any  intention  of  hurting  their  patriotic  feel- 
ings. But  such  an  attitude  does  not  please 
the  patriotic  divines  of  our  day,  and  it  is  con- 
cealed with  an  abundance  of  unwarranted 
phrases.  Let  us  be  more  just  to  Augustine. 
The  distinction  of  the  two  cities  was  already 
clear  in  his  mind,  and  it  forbade  him  to  feel 
or  express  a  sorrow  for  the  misfortunes  of 
the  city  of  men.  However,  he  soon  found 
that  a  loud  and  angry  murmur  against 
Christianity  surged  through  the  Empire  in 
the  train  of  the  awful  news. 

If  the  transcendental  aspect  of  the  fall  of 
Rome  offered  considerable  difficulty  to  the 
rival  theologians  of  the  time,  the  merely 
secular  problem  whether  Christianity  was 
responsible  for  the  catastrophe  may  be 
approached  more  hopefully.  Boissier  says 
that,  with  certain  reserves,  the  majority  of 
modern  historians  agree  with  Gibbon  that 
Christianity  and  Christian  princes  must 
bear   the   blame  of  the   disaster,  though 


350  St.  Augustine 

Boissier  himself  resents  the  charge.  Most 
readers  will  feel  that  that  is  not  a  just  formul- 
ation of  Gibbon's  feeling,  and  modern  his- 
torians draw  up  so  lengthy  and  formidable 
a  list  of  dissolving  elements  that  they  leave 
little  room  for  the  destructive  action  of  Chris- 
tianity. He  would  be  a  bold  historian  who 
would  contend  that  Alaric  would  never  have 
entered  Rome  if  Diocletian  had  succeeded 
in  extinguishing  the  Christian  sect.  Rome 
died  of  exhaustion,  and  the  malady  had  set 
in  long  before  the  time  of  Diocletian.  Chris- 
tianity was  not  responsible  for  the  wars  that 
continued  to  drain  the  treasury  and  deplete 
the  army  throughout  the  fourth  century; 
nor  for  the  increasing  decay  of  the  curial  or 
middle  class,  which  mainly  bore  the  finan- 
cial burden,  and  was  gradually  ruined  by 
the  stupid  fiscal  system;  nor  for  the  depopu- 
lation of  the  environs  of  Rome  and  of  the 
agricultural  districts  that  had  fed  the  legions; 
nor  for  the  concentration  of  the  people  in 
the  towns  and  the  increasing  degradation 
and  enervation  of  town  life;  nor  for  the  in- 
troduction and  training  and  evil  management 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome      351 

of  the  barbarians;  nor  for  that  displacement 
of  the  Huns  in  the  far  East  which  precipi- 
tated the  barbarian  avalanche.  It  may  be 
urged  that  the  emphatic  otherworldliness 
of  Christianity  damped  the  ardour  of  patri- 
otism and  made  light  of  the  service  of  the 
Empire.  The  patriotic  feeling  that  had  built 
up  the  Empire  had  already  been  corrupted, 
or  turned  into  a  frothy  jingoism,  to  use  a 
modern  term,  by  selfish  dissipation.  In  any 
case,  Christianity  was  not  taken  so  seriously 
as  that  by  any  large  proportion  of  the  Ro- 
mans. The  number  who  shirked  military 
and  civic  duties  on  religious  grounds  was 
very  small  in  comparison  with  the  number 
of  cowards.  In  fact,  the  Council  of  Aries 
had  discountenanced  the  notion  in  314,  and 
we  find  Augustine  repudiating  it  when  he 
is  pressed  by  anxious  officials.  Nor  can  we 
complain  of  the  millions  which  a  Proba  or  a 
Melania  spent  on  the  Church,  when  even 
richer  Romans  spent  their  wealth  in  selfish 
luxury. 

As  to  the  Christian  emperors,  the  charge 
is  clearly  fallacious.     It  is  difficult  to  see  how 


35 2  St.  Augustine 

it  would  have  altered  the  fortunes  of  the 
Empire  if  Honorius  had  been  a  pagan,  or 
how  much  more  Theodosius  would  have 
done  for  it,  had  he  supported  the  old  religion. 
It  was  one  of  the  grim  humours  of  fate  —  a 
fine  crux  for  the  providential  historian,  if  he 
would  face  it  frankly  —  that  the  senate  had 
been  relieved  of  its  responsibility,  the  suc- 
cession of  a  number  of  boy-emperors  had 
left  the  direction  of  affairs  and  the  employ- 
ment of  material  at  the  mercy  of  a  series  of 
intrigues,  and  the  action  of  two  centuries 
of  corroding  forces  had  culminated  just  in 
that  half-century  when  the  greatest  pressure 
was  exerted  on  the  walls  of  the  Western  Em- 
pire. Where  vigour  and  wisdom  and  capa- 
bility were  wanting,  religion  could  make 
little  difference.  If  the  fact  that  Gratian, 
Valentinian,  and  Honorius  were  Christians 
seems  to  have  any  significance,  we  have 
only  to  recall  the  sincerely  Christian  Theo- 
dosius, with  whom,  says  Gibbon,  "the 
genius  of  Rome  expired."  The  one  great 
political  evil  of  the  triumph  of  Christianity 
was  the  profound  distraction  of  the  Empire 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome       353 

by  religious  quarrels  when  every  eye  should 
have  been  bent  on  the  movements  of  the 
tribesmen  and  the  weakness  of  the  Empire. 
But  it  is  more  than  doubtful  if  the  absence 
of  this  distraction  would  have  prolonged  the 
life  of  the  Empire  in  its  integrity  for  ten 
years. 

No ;  the  murmur  against  Christianity, 
which  at  length  impelled  Augustine  to  turn 
his  polemical  faculty  on  the  pagans,  rested 
on  less  tangible  considerations.  We  do,  it 
is  true,  find  a  certain  amount  of  the  more 
rational  criticism  in  cultured  circles,  though 
we  have,  as  I  said,  singularly  little  know- 
ledge of  the  feeling  towards  Christianity  of 
the  cultured  pagans.  One  of  the  few  open 
declarations  in  the  Latin  literature  of  the 
period  is  a  bitterly  contemptuous  passage  in 
the  poet,  Rutilius  Numantinus,  on  the  cow- 
ardly and  unintelligible  withdrawal  from  the 
world  of  the  Christian  monks.  A  more  in- 
teresting glimpse  is  afforded  by  one  or  two 
of  Augustine's  letters  of  (most  probably) 
the  year  412.  Amongst  those  who  had 
taken  refuge  in  Africa  was  Volusianus,  a 


354  St.  Augustine 

distinguished  member  of  one  of  the  noble 
families  into  which  Christianity  had  pene- 
trated, and  afterwards  prefect  and  proconsul. 
His  mother  had  pressed  Augustine  to  open  a 
correspondence  with  him,  and  he  did  so, 
urging  him  to  read  the  Christian  Scriptures 
and  submit  his  difficulties.  Volusian  replied 
with  great  courtesy  and  sincere  respect. 
He  said  that  he  and  a  number  of  friends  had 
been  holding  at  Carthage  one  of  the  formal 
rhetorical  conversations  which  were  then  in 
vogue— somewhat  in  the  style  of  the  Satur- 
nalia of  Macrobius.  A  member  of  the  group 
had  introduced  Christianity,  and  they  had 
puzzled  over  the  details  of  the  birth  and  hu- 
manity of  Christ.  But  the  letter  was  cov- 
ered by  one  from  Count  Marcellinus  (who 
had  presided  at  the  great  conference),  in 
which  he  begged  Augustine  to  send  a  care- 
ful reply,  and  said  that,  in  addition  to  these 
rationalistic  difficulties  about  the  Incarna- 
tion, Volusianus  and  his  pagan  friends  had 
been  concerned  about  those  features  of 
Christ's  teaching  which  Count  Tolstoy  now 
holds  in  solitary  grandeur.  They  respectfully 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome       355 

submitted  that  to  turn  the  other  cheek  to 
the  smiter  was  a  somewhat  questionable 
ideal  to  propagate  in  the  Empire.  Augustine 
sent  a  long,  careful,  and  ingenious  reply,  but 
it  failed  of  its  immediate  object.  Hagio- 
graphers  generally  declare  that  Volusianus 
became  a  Christian  at  Constantinople  on  his 
death-bed  long  afterwards,  but  even  this 
consolation  rests  on  a  very  dubious  identifi- 
cation. All  Augustine's  concessions  to  hu- 
man nature  — as  that  Christianity  didjiot 
condemn  war,  etc.  —  could  not  cover  the 
weakness  of  his  position;  indeed,  he  had  to 
fall  back  in  the  end  on  the  usual  theory  that 
"  faith  opens  the  door  to  intelligence  and  in- 
fidelity closes  it. "  Volusianus  seems  to  have 
preferred  the  rationalistic  maxim  with  which 
Augustine  himself  always  confronts  alien 
revelations.  Marcellinus  also  mentioned  in 
his  letter  that  the  owner  of  most  of  the  Hippo 
territory  was  present  at  the  conversation, 
and  spoke  sarcastically  of  Augustine's  failure 
to  answer  his  own  questions. 

But  the  historic  literary  sequel  to  the  fall 
of  Rome  was  the  writing  of  Augustine's 


As 


3S6  St.  Augustine 

famous  City  of  God.  For  several  years  after 
the  triumph  of  the  Goths  the  murmur  against 
Christianity  rolled  sullenly  through  the  pro- 
vinces. When  the  temples  were  closed 
and  the  sacrifices  forbidden,  the  Chris- 
tians enjoyed  the  facile  triumph  of  asking, 
"  Where  is  the  thunder  of  your  Jove?  "  In 
410  the  answer  sprang  to  the  troubled  lips 
"of  the  pagans.  The  Empire  had  been  smit- 
ten for  its  infidelity.  It  was  one  of  those 
popular  cries  that  seem  unanswerable  to  the 
multitude.  They  remembered  the  eloquent 
warning  of  Symmachus.  Time  after  time 
Augustine  returned  to  the  point  in  his  ser- 
mons, gradually  elaborating  the  idea  of  his 
great  work.  Then  brother  prelates  urged 
him  to  meet  the  attack.  He  himself  had 
stimulated  a  young  Spanish  priest,  who 
came  to  visit  him,  into  writing  a  history  of 
the  world,  which  should  show  by  the  bare 
record  of  events  —  judiciously  arranged  or 
curtailed  — the  futility  of  the  notion  that 
disaster  only  entered  the  Roman  world  with 
Christianity.  But  Orosius  had  not  the  large 
ideas  of  the  philosophic  Augustine,  and  his 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome       357 

history  must  have  had  little  effect.  By  the 
year  413  Augustine  had  matured  his  central 
idea  of  the  two  cities,  and  he  began  the  first 
of  the  twenty-two  books  of  his  most  familiar 
work. 

Of  the  work  in  its  entirety  one  may  safely 
say  with  Gibbon  that  "it  had  the  merit  of  a 
magnificent  design,  vigorously  and  not  un- 
skilfully executed."  The  design  to  which 
Gibbon  refers  is  the  idea  of  the  two  cities, 
with  which  most  readers  are  acquainted. 
Plato  had  conceived  the  world  about  us  as  a 
compound  of  two  worlds,the  light  of  the  ideal 
world  mingling  with  and  breaking  through 
the  ever-changing  panorama  of  the  world  of 
sense.  In  like  manner  Augustine  conceives 
the  drama  of  life  to  be  a  blending  of  two 
elements.  The  life  of  the  individual  and  of 
the  nation,  as  it  appears  to  the  natural  mind, 
is  part  of  a  larger  whole,  revealed  to  us  in  all 
its  grandeur  by  the  Christian  Scriptures. 
And  Augustine's  thesis  is  that  only  in  this 
larger  whole  can  we  see  the  true  proportion 
of  historic  events;  only  when  we  appreciate 
that  the  members  of  the  city  of  men  are  also 


358  St.  Augustine 

members  of  the  City  of  God  can  we  follow 
their  fortunes  correctly.  But  they  who  look 
for  a  philosophic  unity  in  the  work  will 
be  greatly  disappointed.  The  first  ten 
books  are  devoted  to  a  rambling  criticism 
of  the  pagans  — five  to  historical  and  gen- 
eral criticism,  and  five  to  a  criticism  of  their 
philosophers;  the  remaining  twelve  books 
bear  the  title  of  the  City  of  God  more  appro- 
priately, though  they  also  were  evidently 
not  written  on  a  preconceived  plan.  It 
could  not  be  otherwise  in  Augustine's  cir- 
cumstances. His  days  were  crowded  with 
work.  It  was  only  at  rare  intervals  that  he 
could  find  a  few  hours  to  devote  to  the 
book.  He  probably  began  it  in  413,  and 
wrote  the  first  three  books.  In  the  year 
416,  when  Orosius  was  with  him,  he  had 
reached  the  eleventh  book.  He  speaks  of 
writing  the  fourteenth  in  420,  and  he  seems 
to  have  completed  the  work  in  426  or  427. 
One  knows  how  much  unity  to  expect  in 
such  circumstances,  and  in  view  of  the 
constant  interruptions  of  Augustine's  life.  It 
is  a  wonderful  presentment  of  Augustine's 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome       359 

earlier  erudition,loosely  unified  and  curiously 
interpreted  by  his  later  theological  opinions. 
The  first  five  books  were  intended  directly 
to  refute  the  current  pagan  murmurs,  as  I 
said,  but  they  are  hardly  likely  to  have  been 
very  successful.  The  argument  is  strained 
and  inconsistent,  and  the  criticism  small. 
He  opens  with  an  unhappy  stress  on  the 
circumstance  of  Marie's  sparing  those  who 
took  refuge  in  the  churches  at  Rome,  which 
he  declares  to  be  unique.  The  Benedictines 
themselves  refute  his  point  in  a  footnote. 
Then,  continuing  his  consolation  of  the 
wavering  Christians,  he  gives  the  usual  un- 
answerable reply  to  the  question  why  God 
permitted  the  Christians  to  suffer:  If  they 
were  bad  Christians,  they  suffered  for  their 
sins;  if  they  were  good,  the  suffering  was  a 
purification  and  trial.  But  there  was  still 
less  consolation  in  such  phrases  as:  "No 
one  was  killed  who  would  not  have  had  to 
die  some  day,"  and,  "What  does  it  matter 
how  a  man's  life  ends  so  long  as  he  is  not 
compelled  to  die  again  ?  "  He  attacks  the 
suicide  of  Lucretia  and  Cato  in  a  petty 


360  St.  Augustine 

spirit,  and,  when  he  recollects  that  saints 
have  done  something  simliar,  takes  refuge 
in  particular  inspiration.  In  the  next  book 
he  urges  that  the  Roman  gods  never  com- 
mended probity  of  life;  and  when  an  eso- 
teric doctrine  of  that  kind  is  produced  he 
replies  that  the  devil  would  not  be  the  devil 
if  he  did  not  imitate  an  angel  of  light  at 
times.  When  he  proves  the  helplessness 
of  the  gods,  in  the  third  book,  by  narrating 
the  disasters  of  Rome  in  pre-Christian  ages, 
he  has  an  easy  task;  but  even  this  point 
collapses  when  he  asks,  in  the  following 
book,  why  God  rewarded  the  Romans  with 
so  vast  an  empire  (he  remarks  incidentally 
that  extent  of  domain  is  no  advantage);  and 
when  he  answers  that  it  is  the  "natural" 
(#.  e.,  secular)  reward  for  their  "  natural  "  vir- 
tues, he  forgets  that  he  has  previously 
handed  over  the  early  Romans  to  the  in- 
spiration and  assistance  of  demons.  In  his 
anxiety  to  make  all  virtue  theistic,  he  enters 
into  a  sorry  criticism  of  the  finest  models  of 
old  Rome.  Finally,  he  concludes  the  fifth 
book  with  a  fine  ideal  portrait  of  a  ' '  Christian 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome      361 

emperor,"  in  sweet  unconsciousness  that  its 
only  use  is  to  show  what  the  emperors  of 
the  fourth  century  should  have  been  and 
were  not.  This  tissue  of  contradictions  must 
"have  quite  neutralised  the  force  of  his  vast, 
yet  imperfect,  historical  erudition,  and  his 
subtle  and  ingenious  reasoning. 

In  the  philosophic  books  (6-10)  he  vigor- 
ously attacks  those  who  support  the  old 
religion  on  a  groundwork  of  the  mono- 
theistic ideas  of  Varro  or  Plato.  Whenever 
he  deals  with  the  details  of  the  Roman 
mythology  he  is  irresistible  —  and  there  is 
no  one  to  resist  him.  He  is  less  forcible  in 
his  criticism  of  Varro  and  of  the  Platonists, 
though  he  is  still  respectful  to  Plato.  In  the 
end  he  wisely  entrenches  himself  on  the 
inability  of  Varro  or  Plato  to  spread  truth 
and  virtue  amongst  the  masses,  and  so 
introduces,  in  a  very  earnest  and  beautiful 
passage,  the  necessity  of  the  Incarnation. 
The  one  defect  here  is  his  unconsciousness 
that  the  chief  question  is  the  historical  one 
—Did  God  become  man  ?  Probably  few 
noticed  that  defect  in  his  day. 


362  St.  Augustine 

The  second  half  of  the  work  is  construct- 
ive and  theological.  Six  books  (1 1-16)  are 
devoted  to  one  of  his  innumerable  efforts 
to  get  at  the  light  which  he  was  convinced 
was  hidden  in  Genesis.1  The  subtle  spec- 
ulations on  creation  are  renewed  from  his 
Confessions,  and  the  text  of  Genesis  leads 
him  to  discourse  on  evil  and  sin,  whilst 
he  labours  with  painful  ingenuity  over  the 
details  of  the  now  superannuated  legends; 
in  proof  of  the  existence  of  giants  in  early 
times  he  quotes  the  finding  of  a  huge  tooth 
(possibly  of  a  mammoth),  and  he  thinks 
the  angels  may  have  taken  the  animals  to 
the  outlying  islands  after  the  flood.  With 
even  greater  boldness  he  proves  that  Abra- 
ham did  not  tell  a  lie  about  Sara,  and  that 
the  patriarchs  were  indifferent  to  sexual 
pleasure,  and  only  propagated  the  race  so 
largely  out  of  a  sense  of  social  duty.  In 
the  concluding  books  he  leads  up  gradually 
to  an  eloquent  presentment  of  the  Christian 

1  It  is  in  the  eleventh  book  that  he  anticipates  Descartes'  famous 
Cogito,  ergo  sum.  It  has  been  proved  that  Descartes  did  not  follow 
Augustine,  but  it  has  not  yet  been  inquired  whether  Augustine  bor- 
rowed the  idea  from  Plotinus. 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome       363 

doctrine  of  the  'Mast  things,"  illustrating, 
by  the  way,  the  action  of  eternal  fire  from 
the  life  of  the  salamander,  and  sternly  re- 
buking miserioordes  nostri  for  questioning 
the  eternity  of  hell.  It  seems  to  be  a  pretty 
general  feeling  amongst  historical  writers 
that  the  work  cannot  have  had  a  great 
influence  on  its  age,  though  it  became  the 
chief  monument  of  Augustine's  learning 
and  power  in  after  years.  Again  let  me 
recall  the  circumstances  under  which  it  was 
produced;  probably  no  other  work  of  such 
a  magnitude  and  ambition  was  ever  written 
under  such  distracting  circumstances.  Au- 
gustine had  little  leisure  for  sustained  reflec- 
tion, and  even  less  opportunity  to  complete 
his  faulty  erudition.  To  have  produced  a 
great  work  under  such  conditions  was  a  re- 
markable achievement. 

To  return  to  the  period  immediately  after 
the  fall  of  Rome :  Africa  was  the  natural 
refuge  of  the  wealthy  Romans  who  fled 
before  the  stream  of  barbarians,  and  some 
curious  scenes  were  witnessed  there  in  411 
and  412.     One  of  these  scenes  occurred  in 


364  St.  Augustine 

Augustine's  church  at  Hippo,  and  caused 
him  considerable  pain.  Amongst  the  rich 
Christian  families  that  fled  from  Rome  was 
the  very  remarkable  family  of  Melania,  who 
came  to  Africa  in  411,  with  her  daughter- 
in-law  Albina,  and  grand-daughter  Melania 
the  younger,  with  her  husband  Pinianus. 
Melania  the  elder,  one  of  the  most  notable 
Christian  ladies  at  Rome,  and  widow  of  a 
consul,  had  developed  a  quite  fanatical 
fervour  for  inducing  people  to  make  vows 
of  continence  or  to  embrace  the  monastic 
life.  Albina  seems  to  have  been  of  a  less 
nervous  temper,  and  Melania  concentrated 
her  domestic  zeal  on  her  grand-daughter. 
The  young  Melania  was  a  susceptible  pupil, 
but  she  had  married  Pinianus  at  an  early 
age  in  deference  to  her  father's  wish.  The 
elder  lady  then  made  strenuous  efforts  to 
part  the  young  couple,  and  they  had  con- 
sented to  take  a  vow  of  continence  after 
their  second  child  was  born.  The  young 
wife  added  many  other  ascetical  practices, 
using  a  pious  deception  with  regard  to  her 
more  judicious    spouse.    Jerome's    advice 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome       365 

about  the  bath  was  taken  to  heart,  and 
she  used  to  bribe  the  slaves  who  accom- 
panied her  to  the  room  to  conceal  the  fact 
that  she  had  not  bathed;  she  is  also  said 
to  have  worn  a  hair  shirt  under  her  silken 
robes.  When  the  fear  of  invasion  began  in 
408,  they  sold  their  vast  estates  in  Spain, 
Italy,  and  Gaul,  liberating  eight  thousand 
slaves,  it  is  said,  and  fled  to  Sicily,  and 
afterwards  to  Carthage,  with  the  proceeds 
and  the  income  of  their  African  domains. 
Simeon  Metaphrastes,  a  hagiographer  with 
a  fine  gift  of  rounding  numbers  and  select- 
ing striking  facts,  says  that  their  palace  at 
Rome  was  so  costly  that  no  one  could  buy 
it  until  the  barbarians  had  reduced  its  value. 
However,  scattering  gold  on  "the  poor  and 
religious  clergy"  as  they  travelled,  they 
passed  through  Sicily  and  Carthage,  and 
settled  at  Thagaste.  There  they  continued 
their  benefactions,  founding  a  monastery 
of  eighty  monks  and  a  convent  of  one 
hundred  and  thirty  nuns,  and  spending  vast 
sums  in  "making  converts."  They  were 
naturally  eager  to  see  Augustine,  but  he 


366  St.  Augustine 

explained  in  a  letter  to  Melania  that  the 
severity  of  the  winter  prevented  him  from 
coming;  besides  that,  he  candidly  added,  his 
congregation  were  already  "most  danger- 
ously scandalised  "  at  his  frequent  absence. 
Hence  Pinianus  and  his  wife  came  to  see 
him  at  Hippo,  and  there  occurred  one  of 
the  curious  scenes  which  enliven  the  church 
life  of  those  informal  days. 

The  people  of  Hippo  were  well  acquainted 
with  the  wealth  and  generosity  of  Pin- 
ianus, and  one  day  when  he  and  Melania 
were  at  service  in  the  basilica,  they  began 
to  demand  him  for  their  priest.  Pinianus 
seems  to  have  had  some  previous  experi- 
ence of  this  kind,  for  he  had  in  advance 
secured  a  promise  on  oath  from  Augustine 
that  he  should  not  be  ordained  against  his 
will— a  by  no  means  uncommon  contin- 
gency in  those  days.  Augustine,  therefore, 
curtly  told  the  people  of  his  promise,  and 
threatened  to  leave  them  if  they  persisted. 
Some  of  their  leaders  then  approached  him 
in  the  apse,  and  pressed  their  request.  He 
could  only  repeat  his  refusal,  and  a  "hor- 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome       367 

rible  turmoil  "  followed.  The  people  loudly 
accused  Alypius,  who  was  with  Augustine 
in  the  apse,  of  wanting  all  the  wealth  for 
his  own  church  of  Thagaste;  whilst  Pin- 
ianus  and  Melania  spoke  bitterly  of  the 
sordid  covetousness  of  Augustine's  people. 
The  bishop  began  to  be  apprehensive  for 
the  life  of  Alypius  and,  as  he  afterwards 
said,  lest  they  should  pull  his  church  down. 
After  a  long  and  painful  period  of  alterca- 
tion and  vituperation  between  priests  and 
people,  Pinianus  was  compelled  to  promise 
on  oath  that  he  would  not  leave  Hippo  or 
be  ordained  in  any  other  church,  and  the 
people  dispersed.  It  was  a  sad  time  for 
the  poor  bishop,  as  he  indicates  in  a  sub- 
sequent letter  to  Alypius.  Albina  openly 
associated  Augustine  with  his  congregation 
in  the  charge  of  avarice;  "the  common 
people  accused  thee  of  this,"  he  says  to 
Alypius,  "whilst  we  were  accused  by  the 
lights  of  the  Church."  He  "is  not  angry 
with  Albina,  nor  does  he  think  she  should 
be  rebuked,"  but  if  anybody  has  given  her 
a  different  version  of  the  affair  from  the 


368  St.  Augustine 

above  he  — or,  rather,  she,  for  he  is  clearly 
thinking  of  Melania — "either  lies  or  is 
mistaken."  Alypius  and  Albina  held  that 
the  oath  extorted  so  violently  from  Pin- 
ianus  did  not  bind,  but  Augustine  claimed 
compliance  with  it.  Eventually  the  diffi- 
culty was  removed  in  an  unexpected  fash- 
ion. They  were  robbed  of  their  remaining 
estates  by  the  unscrupulous  Heraclian,  and 
the  affection  of  the  worthy  Hipponenses 
rapidly  cooled  and  restored  his  liberty  to 
Pinianus.  The  elder  Melania  had  already 
departed  for  the  monasteries  of  the  East, 
after  making  another  fruitless  attempt  to 
separate  the  chaste  spouses.  When  their 
wealth  was  gone,  they  also  proceeded  to 
Palestine,  and  rejoiced  the  aged  zealot  by 
breaking  up  their  home  and  entering  dif- 
ferent monasteries. 

The  Heraclian  I  have  just  mentioned  will 
be  remembered  as  the  loyal  count  of  the 
African  forces,  who  retained  the  country  for 
Honorius  against  the  forces  of  Attalus.  In 
the  confusion  of  410  and  411  his  loyalty  suf- 
fered a  remarkable  transformation,  and  ended 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome       369 

at  length  in  open  rebellion.  Heraclian  was 
the  leader  of  the  Christian  party  after  the 
disgrace  of  Olympus.  Yet  when  the  fugitive 
nobles  fled  to  Carthage  after  the  fall  of 
Rome,  they  found  this  loyal  and  Christian 
prince  awaiting  them  at  the  port ' '  like  Orcus 
at  the  gate  of  hell,"  to  use  Jerome's  forceful 
phraseology.  Alaric  had  been  less  cruel. 
Noble  mothers  fled  with  their  daughters 
from  the  fierce  Goths,  only  to  find  a  more 
certain  disaster  at  the  hands  of  the  Roman. 
Gibbon  has  observed  or  conjectured  that 
"the  lack  of  youth  or  beauty  or  chastity" 
saved  the  honour  of  most  of  the  ladies  of 
Rome.  Salvianus  gives  a  very  different  idea 
of  the  Goths;  but,  in  any  case,  large  num- 
bers of  the  Roman  ladies  had  fled  to  Africa, 
and  there  wealth  was  their  only  preserver. 
Those  who  had  not  brought  considerable 
treasure,  with  which  to  pay  their  footing  on 
African  soil,  saw  their  daughters  torn  from 
their  embraces  and  sold  to  the  Syrian  mer- 
chants who  supplied  the  busy  markets  of 
the  East. 
Amongst  those  who  suffered  severely  at 


370  St.  Augustine 

the  hands  of  Heraclian,  was  a  second  trio  of 
noble  Christian  ladies,  Proba  Faltonia  and 
her  daughter-in-law  Juliana,  and  grand- 
daughter Demetrias.  1  have  said  in  a  pre- 
vious chapter  that  the  palace  of  Proba, 
heiress  of  the  Anicii  and  wife  of  the  prefect 
Sextus  Petronius  Probus,  was  one  of  the 
chief  Christian  centres  at  Rome.  Mr.  Dill 
describes  Probus  as  a  rather  lukewarm 
Christian;  at  all  events,  he  and  his  three 
sons  (all  consuls)  were  not  deterred  by  any 
lofty  religious  scruples  from  devoting  their 
services  to  the  falling  Empire.  When  Rome 
had  fallen,  the  three  ladies  sailed  for  Car- 
thage with  such  treasure  as  they  could  con- 
vey from  the  wreck  of  their  vast  fortunes. 
But  they  had  only  preserved  the  young  and 
beautiful  Demetrias  from  the  rude  embraces 
of  Marie's  soldiers  to  find  a  crowd  of  Syrian 
merchants  bidding  for  her  on  the  quays  of 
Carthage.  Juliana  is  said  to  have  parted 
with  half  her  remaining  fortune  to  the  de- 
spicable Heraclian  before  she  and  her  daugh- 
ter were  set  at  liberty.  They  then  settled 
at  Carthage,   and  we  have  a  long  letter 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome      371 

which  Augustine  wrote  them  on  prayer. 
Two  years  afterwards  great  excitement  was 
caused  throughout  the  Empire,  we  are  told, 
by  the  announcement  that  the  young  De- 
metrias,  a  famous  beauty,  and  the  last 
heiress  of  three  celebrated  families,— the 
Probi,  the  Anicii,  and  the  Olybrii,— was 
about  to  make  a  vow  of  virginity.  She  was 
betrothed  to  a  Roman  noble,  but  the  general 
apprehension  that  the  end  of  the  world  was 
at  hand  seems  to  have  reduced  the  harsh- 
ness of  the  growing  cult  of  virginity,  and  she, 
like  so  many  others,  yielded  to  the  higher 
counsel  apparently  through  the  inspira- 
tion of  Augustine.  In  414  Augustine  re- 
ceived from  Juliana  the  usual  apophoreturn, 
or  "wedding  gift,"  announcing  that  her 
daughter  had  taken  the  veil.  Whilst  worldly- 
minded  Romans  deplored  this  extinction  of 
another  of  Rome's  best  families  for  a  per- 
verse and  morbid  ideal,  Augustine  and 
Jerome  and  the  other  Christian  leaders 
showered  the  most  enthusiastic  panegyrics 
on  the  mother  and  daughter.  Amongst 
others,  Pelagius,  who  had  already  begun  to 


372  St.  Augustine 

disturb  the  Western  theologians  with  his 
sturdy  defence  of  human  nature,  wrote  an 
admiring  epistle  to  the  virgin,  and  did  not 
neglect  to  point  out  the  power  and  nobility 
of  the  human  will  which  were  exhibited  in 
her  heroic  vows.  The  letter,  or  treatise, 
had  considerable  vogue  at  the  time,  and 
eventually  fell  under  the  eyes  of  Augustine, 
who  at  once  wrote  to  assure  the  bewildered 
maiden  that  (despite  his  praise  of  her  con- 
duct) her  virtuous  action  must  be  attributed 
entirely  to  the  grace  of  God.  But  the  epi- 
sode is  part  of  the  celebrated  conflict  of 
Augustine  and  Pelagius,  which  we  must 
reserve  for  a  later  chapter.  Juliana  seems  to 
have  returned  to  Rome  with  her  daughter 
and  the  aged  Proba,  and  the  remnants  of 
her  once  immeasurable  fortune. 

We  must  also  regard  as  one  of  the  imme- 
diate echoes  of  the  fall  of  Rome  the  rebellion 
of  the  rapacious  Heraclian.  The  count  had 
been  sent  to  Africa  after  the  death  of  Stilicho, 
and  had  held  it  against  the  troops  of  Attalus. 
But  the  disasters  of  the  Empire  and,  proba- 
bly, the  sight  of  the  hopeless  incapacity  of 


Echoes  of  the  Fall  of  Rome       373 

Honorius,  inspired  him  with  an  ambition  for 
the  purple.  With  his  mad  expedition  to 
Italy  and  defeat  by  Count  Marinus  we  have 
no  concern,  but  there  was  a  sequel  which 
greatly  agitated  Augustine.  When  Marinus 
came  to  Africa  to  extinguish  the  last  sparks 
of  the  rebellion,  there  was  the  usual  zeal  for 
the  execution  of  prominent  sympathisers. 
Amongst  those  who  were  denounced  to 
Marinus  was  Augustine's  friend,  the  tribune 
Marcellinus,  who  had  presided  at  the  con- 
ference with  the  Donatists.  Orosius  men- 
tions in  his  history  a  suspicion  that  the 
Donatists  had  denounced  Marcellinus  and 
bribed  Marinus  to  have  him  executed ; 
Jerome  is  also  of  that  opinion.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  say  whether  there  is  any  truth  in 
the  suggestion,  or  whether  Marcellinus  was 
really  implicated,  but  the  circumstances  of 
his  execution  are  not  free  from  suspicion. 
Augustine  was  at  Carthage  pleading  the 
cause  of  his  friend,  and  he  obtained  from 
Marinus  a  promise  that  no  action  would  be 
taken  until  the  bishops  had  communicated 
with  the  Emperor   on  the   matter.     The 


374  St.  Augustine 

promise  was  broken,  and  Marcellinus  and  his 
brother  were  executed  in  prison  soon  after- 
wards. Augustine's  behaviour  on  the  occa- 
sion is  not  so  clear  as  one  would  wish  ; 
perhaps  the  kindest  interpretation  is  that  he 
left  Carthage  in  pious  indignation  at  the 
duplicity  of  the  officials.  The  churches 
were,  he  says  in  a  letter  to  Csecilianus, 
filled  with  fugitive  rebels  who  were  pro- 
tected for  the  time  by  the  law  of  sanctuary, 
but  sought  Augustine's  intercession  for  the 
settlement  of  their  causes.  Yet  he  left 
Carthage  hurriedly  and  secretly,  as  soon  as 
he  heard  of  the  execution  of  Marcellinus. 
He  can  only  explain  to  Cascilianus  that,  as 
he  dare  not  face  Marinus  and  "  rebuke  him 
as  he  deserved,"  he  thought  he  had  better 
leave  the  scene  altogether. 


Chapter  XIV 

The  Works  of  Augustine 

TPHE  preceding  five  chapters  have  pre- 
sented so  active  and  crowded  a  life 
that  there  seems  little  room  left  for  literary 
labours.  The  long  hours  spent  in  preaching 
or  catechising  in  his  basilica,  the  yet  longer 
hours  devoted  to  his  judicial  functions,  the 
frequent  journeys  to,  and  long  detention  in, 
Carthage,  the  constant  overlooking  of  his 
parish  (or  diocese),  the  sermons  and  public 
debates  abroad,  and  the  painstaking  and 
humble  concern  with  every  grievance  that 
is  put  before  him,  make  up  a  heavy  burden 
for  a  frail  and  constantly  ailing  man.  Yet 
we  have  up  to  the  present  hardly  touched 
upon  one  of  the  most  exacting  and  most 
remarkable  of  Augustine's  performances. 
In  the  midst  of  all  those  distractions  he 
found  time  for  literary  labours  of  excep- 

375 


37&  St.  Augustine  «> 

tional  magnitude.  Eleven  volumes  of  the 
Migne  edition  of  the  Fathers  are  occupied 
with  his  extant  works.  Moreover,  the  va- 
riety of  the  subjects  he  deals  with  is  amaz- 
ing. In  his  commentaries  he  covers  nearly 
the  whole  ground  of  the  Scriptures;  there  is 
hardly  a  point  of  dogma  or  of  ethics  which 
he  leaves  untouched  in  his  theological 
works;  he  talks  science  with  the  Mani- 
cheans,  philosophy  with  the  Platonists,  and 
history  with  the  pagans.  So  extensive  an 
activity  has  its  disadvantages,  of  course. 
His  scriptural  work  is  feeble  when  com- 
pared with  Jerome's  learned  and  leisurely 
interpretations;  just  as  the  swift  fluency  of 
his  style  shrinks  from  comparison  with  Je- 
rome's laborious  production —the  hermit 
of  Bethlehem  polishing  and  rewriting  his 
letters  most  conscientiously  at  the  very  mo- 
ment he  is  pouring  contempt  on  literature. 
Nevertheless,  his  hurried  writings  are  so 
instinct  with  high  personal  thinking,  that 
Leibnitz  has  pronounced  him  to  be  "en- 
dowed with  a  most  vast  talent";  Baur 
has  said  that  "no  other  theologian  is  so 


The  Works  of  Augustine         377 

able  or  fertile  ";  and  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  on  the 
philosophic  side,  has  considered  him  "one 
of  the  profoundest  thinkers  of  antiquity." 

I  have  already  dealt  with  Augustine's 
earlier  works,  as  well  as  with  his  anti- 
Donatist  and  most  of  his  anti-Manichean 
writings.  In  the  next  chapter  I  shall  speak 
of  his  anti-Pelagian  works.  Besides  these 
we  have  a  large  number  of  scriptural  and 
theological  works,  which  were  written  for 
the  most  part  between  400  and  420.  Many 
of  these  1  shall  not  trouble  to  describe. 
Probably  few,  if  any,  living  people  have 
read  even  the  greater  part  of  Augustine's 
works.  The  interest  of  many  of  them  is 
obsolete,  and  there  is,  naturally,  a  very 
large  amount  of  repetition.  The  earlier 
works  were  too  characteristic  to  be  omitted. 
Where  the  later  ones  are  also  character- 
istic, or  offer  especial  interest,  1  will  point 
it  out;  but  it  would  obviously  require  a  not 
inconsiderable  volume  to  contain  the  sum- 
mary of  all  Augustine's  works,  and  a  rare  pa- 
tience in  the  reader  to  make  it  serviceable. 

Commentaries  on  Scripture  are  clearly  not 


37%  St.  Augustine 

works  of  which  one  may  usefully  give  a 
summary,  and  two  volumes  of  Augustine's 
writings  fall  in  that  class.  The  most  notable 
of  his  biblical  writings  is  his  Commentary  on 
the  Psalms  (Enarratio  in  Psalmos).  This  pro- 
digious work,  filling  nearly  two  thousand 
columns  of  the  Migne  edition,  was  still  read 
with  admiring  interest  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  may  even  now  serve  to  relieve  the 
leaden  hours  in  the  life  of  some  Carthusian 
monk.  Petrarch  calls  it  "a  magnificent 
work,"  when  he  writes  to  thank  Boccaccio- 
one  wonders  how  much  of  it  Boccaccio  had 
read — for  a  copy  of  it ;  and  whoever  cares 
to  dip  into  it  will  find,  with  Petrarch,  that  it 
is  "not  less  remarkable  for  richness  of  sense 
than  volume  of  letters."  It  is  really  a  lengthy 
series  of  sermons,  delivered  in  his  basilica, 
or  written  for  delivery,  covering  the  whole 
book  of  Psalms.  Unfortunately,  this  was 
the  worst  section  of  the  Vulgate  version  of 
the  Bible,  reading  at  times  as  unadulterated 
nonsense,  in  which  Augustine  seeks  wis- 
dom, and  succeeds  to  a  painful  extent.  Je- 
rome had  translated  the  Psalms  from  the 


The  Works  of  Augustine         379 

Hebrew,  but  the  old  version  could  not  be 
dislodged  from  the  memories  and  affections 
of  the  monks  and  people.  Augustine  seems 
to  have  begun  his  work  about  the  year  414, 
and  no  doubt  continued  it  for  many  years. 
Of  other  Old  Testament  works  we  have  his 
two  commentaries  on  the  Heptateuch  (writ- 
ten about  419),  his  Annotations  to  Job  (c. 
400),  and  his  writings  on  Genesis.  I  have 
already  described  his  earlier  concern  with 
the  legends  of  Genesis,  which  had  been 
quickened  by  Manichean  controversy.  For 
a  long  time  he  hesitated  between  the  literal 
and  spiritual  interpretation  of  the  book,  but 
at  length  decided  to  defend  a  literal  inter- 
pretation against  the  Manichees  (who  could 
not  admit  that  God  created  matter,  etc.). 
His  first  attempt,  in  393,  broke  down  :  "  My 
noviceship  failed  under  so  formidable  a  bur- 
den." He  resumed  the  task  about  the  year 
400,  and  completed  it  in  415.  The  work  is 
not  only  pathetic  in  its  vigorous  defence  of 
speculations  which  modern  divines  calmly 
assign  to  Babylonian  ignorance,  but  it  is 
marred  by  many  of  Augustine's  later  ideas. 


380  St.  Augustine 

The  cosmological  errors,  the  denial  of  the 
antipodes,  etc.,  we  gladly  overlook;  but, 
though  we  recognise  that  it  is  most  truly 
only  the  defect  of  his  high  spiritual  quality, 
we  read  with  pity  his  contemptuous  attack 
on  human  knowledge. 

Many  —  he  says  —  dispute  about  things  which  our 
authors  have  omitted,  seeing  that  they  do  not  conduce 
to  the  blessed  life ;  and  take  up  with  lower  things  very 
precious  time  that  should  be  given  to  their  salvation. 
For  what  is  it  to  me  whether  the  firmament  enclose 
the  earth  on  all  sides  like  a  sphere,  or  cover  it  from 
above  like  a  disk  ? 

Worse  still  is  his  commentary  on  the  crea- 
tion of  woman,  which  reads  as  though  he 
had  entered  into  both  letter  and  spirit  of  the 
old  Hebrew  writer,  to  whom  the  "female" 
is  a  mere  n^n  =  res  perforanda.  He  asks 
why  God  created  woman,  and  his  fertile 
imagination  can  find  no  reason  whatever 
except  procreation. 

We  have  also  a  number  of  commentaries 
on  the  New  Testament.1  The  earliest  of 
these  is  a  short  commentary  on  the  Sermon 

1  The  task  of  identifying  Augustine's  works  is  greatly  facilitated  by 
the  circumstance   that    both  he  (in  his  Retractations)  and  his  pupil 


The  Works  of  Augustine         381 

on  the  Mount,  and  it  was  followed  in  394 
(or  thereabouts)  by  glosses  on  the  Epistles 
to  the  Romans  and  the  Galatians.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  fifth  century  he  wrote  his 
two  books  of  Questions  on  the  Gospels  and 
the  four  books  On  the  Harmony  of  the  Gos- 
pels. The  first  book  of  the  latter  work  is  an 
attack  on  the  pagans,  and  their  comparison 
of  Christ  with  Apollonius  and  Apuleius.  In 
the  other  three  books  he  proves  that  the 
Evangelists  never  really  differ  in  their  re- 
cords. The  question  of  the  authenticity  or 
trustworthiness  of  these  records,  which  the 
modern  world  thinks  of  some  importance, 
does  not  occur  to  him.1  About  the  year 
416  he  published  his  ten  treatises  (or  ser- 
mons) on  the  Epistle  of  St.  John,  and  his 
large  work  (consisting  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty-four    sermons)   on   John's  Gospel. 

Possidius  have  left  lists  of  his  writings.  I  use  the  Migne  edition,  giv- 
ing also  (as  a  rule)  the  dates  assigned  by  the  Benedictines  to  each 
work.  In  the  case  of  Augustine,  the  date  of  a  work  from  which  a 
quotation  is  taken  is  of  extreme  importance. 

1  He  raises  it  in  his  work  Contra  Faustum,  but  only  to  dismiss  it  as 
ridiculous.  He  relies  on  the  tradition  of  the  Church  ;  though  when 
Faustus  urges  the  same  argument  on  behalf  of  the  Manichean  Scrip- 
tures, he  shrewdly  rejects  it,  and  demands  more  tangible  proof  of  their 
inspiration. 


382  St.  Augustine 

The  reader  who  turns  over  the  pages  of  that 
copy  of  the  latter  work  which  lies  on  the 
shelves  of  the  Museum  reading-room  will 
find  ample,  if  not  creditable,  proof  of  the  in- 
terest which  the  ecclesiastical  world  still 
takes  in  one  of  the  sermons — the  26th,  com- 
menting on  the  famous  Eucharistic  passage 
in  the  sixth  chapter  of  John.  Augustine 
speaks  freely  of  the  partaking  of  the  body 
and  blood  of  Christ,  but  neither  here  nor 
elsewhere  does  he  anticipate  the  theory  of 
transubstantiation.1  Finally,  there  are  his 
Mirror  of  Holy  Scripture,  a  compendium  of 
the  moral  and  spiritual  teaching  of  the  whole 
Bible,  published  about  the  close  of  his  life, 

1  No  one  questions  that  the  Christians  of  his  time  had  the  sacrament 
of  the  Eucharist.  But  a  close  inquiry  into  the  sense  in  which  they 
conceived  themselves  to  partake  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  can- 
not find  a  satisfactory  conclusion.  Faustus  says  (in  Contra  Faustum) 
to  Augustine  :  "  You  have  the  same  veneration  [religio]  for  the 
chalice  and  the  bread  as  the  pagans."  Augustine  shirks  the  point, 
merely  answering  that  the  agapce  were  not  borrowed  (this,  by  the  way, 
being  scarcely  even  a  "  half-truth  " — see  his  own  sermon  on  the  sub- 
ject, p.  240).  Faustus  most  probably  meant  the  Mithraists  by  "the 
pagans,"  and  we  know  how  Jerome  and  other  Christian  writers  were 
troubled  about  this  parallel.  The  Mithraic  "Mass"  was  strikingly 
similar  to  that  of  the  Christians,  and  it  ended  with  a  XaolS  a<pe6iS 
which  is  clearly  the  Greek  for  the  Christian  deacon's  Ite,  missa  est. 
Probably  the  Christian  feeling  was  as  vague  as  that  of  the  Mithraist 
with  regard  to  the  sacrament. 


The  Works  of  Augustine         383 

and  his  four  books  On  Christian  Doctrine, 
three  of  which  were  written  in  397,  and  the 
fourth  in  426.  The  latter  work  is  not  only 
a  compendium  of  sacred  teaching,  but  also 
an  instruction  on  the  value  of  different 
sciences  and  methods  in  the  interpretation 
of  Scripture. 

I  have  already  said  as  much  as  the  gen- 
eral reader  will  care  to  know  about  the 
dozen  works  Augustine  wrote  against  the 
Donatists.  They  are  chiefly  occupied  with 
a  wearisome  repetition  of  the  dispute  over 
Cascilian's  ordination  and  the  integrity  of 
his  ordainer,  with  scriptural  and  theological 
disquisitions  on  the  repetition  of  baptism 
and  the  sanctity  and  unity  of  the  Church. 
The  anti-Pelagian  writings  will  be  enum- 
erated in  the  next  chapter.  To  the  anti- 
Manichean  works  we  have  already  seen 
must  be  added  a  book,  Against  Adimantus 
the  Manichee  (mainly  a  scriptural  study, 
written  in  394),  his  large  work  Against 
Faustus  (c.  400),  his  Debate  with  Felix  the 
Manichee  (404),  his  work  On  the  Nature 
of  the  Good  (published  shortly  after  the 


3S4  St.  Augustine 


^ 


preceding),  and  his  book,  A  gainst  Secundinus 
the  Manichee  {c.  405).  Most  of  these  works 
offer  inconsiderable  variations  from  his  main 
attack  on  the  Manichean  position,  but  the 
Contra  Faustum  contains  much  interesting 
reading.  Its  thirty-three  books  are  cast  in 
the  form  of  a  dialogue  with  the  distin- 
guished Manichean  bishop,  and  the  words 
attributed  to  Faustus  —  and  they  are  not 
Augustine's  —  make  many  a  shrewd  point. 
In  his  controversy  with  the  Manicheans 
Augustine  continually  annihilated  the  posi- 
tion he  himself  took  up  in  other  matters. 
He  invites  Volusian  and  his  pagan  friends 
to  join  the  Church  on  the  principle  that 
faith  goes  before  understanding;  when  the 
Manicheans  would  seduce  him  with  similar 
phrases,  he  says:  "I  am  not  minded  to 
believe  what  I  do  not  understand;  I  came 
to  learn  what  is  certain."1  He  demands 
faith  in  the  Gospels  without  pretending  to 
prove  their  authenticity;  but  when  the 
Manicheans  claim  the  inspiration  of  the 
Paraclete  for  their  sacred  books,  he  presses 

1  So  he  says  in  his  Contra  Epistolam  Manichcei. 


The  Works  of  Augustine         385 

for  proof.  So  it  is  with  his  onslaughts  on 
other  heresies,  for  there  were  few  in  his 
day  that  he  did  not  encounter.  He  sends  a 
list  of  them  in  the  little  work  On  Heresies 
which  he  wrote  in  his  last  years  for  the 
deacon  Quodvultdeus.  He  has  a  small 
work  Against  the  Jews,  and  another  (of  the 
year  415)  Against  the  Priscillianists  and 
Origenists.  On  another  occasion,  apparently 
in  420,  a  book  is  picked  up  by  a  Christian 
in  the  streets  of  Carthage.  As  no  one 
knew  either  the  person  or  the  sect  of  the 
writer,  it  would  seem  to  be  safely  negligible, 
but  Augustine  has  to  reply  to  it  in  a  couple 
of  books,  Against  the  Adversary  of  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets.  In  later  years,  too,  he 
fell  foul  of  the  Arians  or  Unitarians.  An 
Arian  sermon  seems  to  have  fallen  into  his 
hands  in  418,  and  he  wrote  a  reply  to  it. 
His  subsequent  controversy  with  the  Arian 
bishop,  Maximinus,  will  be  described  in  the 
next  chapter. 

Another  group  of  Augustine's  works  have 
a  distinctive  interest;  they  are  those  in  which 
he  deals  as  a  casuist  with  questions  of  love 


386  St.  Augustine 

and  matrimony.  It  is  well  known  that 
Augustine  had  views  on  these  questions 
which  even  the  modern  world  regards  as 
perverse,  but  few  imagine  to  what  lengths 
his  logical  faculty  compelled  him  to  go. 
Brucker,  premising  a  half-defiant  and  half- 
apologetic  remark  to  the  effect  that  "a 
spade  should  be  called  a  spade,"  observes 
that  "the  whole  moral  philosophy  of  the 
Fathers  was  rather  weak,"  and  that  Augus- 
tine does  not  take  his  place  "in  the  first 
rank  of  philosophers. " 1  Certainly,  his  views 
on  sexual  relations,  which  were  more  or 
less  shared  by  Jerome  and  Ambrose,  were 
exceedingly  unhappy.  The  root-idea  of  his 
whole  philosophy  is  that  there  is  something 
unhallowed  in  the  very  nature  of  sexual 
feeling,  and  especially  sexual  intercourse. 
The  direct  and  obvious  conclusion  from  this 
theory  was  a  high  estimate  of  physical  in- 
tegrity, and  Augustine  wrote  a  glowing 
eulogy  of  it  in  a  small  work  On  Continence, 
soon  after  his  conversion  (about  395).  Five 
or  six  years  later  he  was  concerned  to  hear 

1  Historia  Critica  Philosophicc. 


The  Works  of  Augustine         3S7 

of  the  success  of  the  monk  Jovinian  in  at- 
tacking the  cult  of  virginity,  and  he  devel- 
oped and  defended  the  ascetic  view  in  two 
works,  On  Holy  Virginity  and  On  Conjugal 
Love.  The  latter  work  is,  perhaps,  the  least 
attractive,  though  by  no  means  the  least  in- 
teresting, of  Augustine's  writings.  As  the 
opinions  expressed  in  it  are  usually  con- 
cealed by  his  biographers,  and  are,  never- 
theless, particularly  instructive,  it  may  be 
well  to  enlarge  a  little  on  them.  Matri- 
mony being  a  divine  institution,  Augustine 
has  to  seek  in  it  the  element  which  conse- 
crates, or  legitimises,  the  sexual  indulgence 
it  implies.  This  he  finds  in  procreation; 
though  in  one  place  he  timidly  adds  its 
utility  in  removing  the  stress  of  temptation. 
From  so  narrow  and  forbidding  a  view  of 
wedded  love  we  may  expect  strange  corol- 
laries. In  the  first  place,  the  pleasure  which 
accompanies  the  act  is  unholy,  and  must 
not  be  desired  or  enjoyed.  Then,  since  the 
maintenance  of  the  race  is  easily  assured, 
men  and  women  of  virtuous  feelings  should 
be  exhorted  to  abstain  altogether,  and  all 


3S8  St.  Augustine 

men  and  women  should  abstain  on  holy 
festivals;  though  he  goes  out  of  his  way  to 
assert  that  the  virginity  of  the  heretic  is  of 
less  value  than  the  marriage  of  the  Chris- 
tian. Moreover,  his  theory  of  marriage  en- 
ables him  to  meet  very  successfully  the 
favourite  objection  of  the  Manichees  —  the 
polygamy  and  extensive  families  of  the 
patriarchs.  Since  procreation  was  the  chief 
matter,  and  the  human  race  called  for  rapid 
increase  in  those  early  ages,  the  conduct  of 
the  patriarchs  was  clearly  moral  and  com- 
mendable; "they  acted  from  a  sense  of 
duty,  not  a  feeling  of  lust,"  he  says  —  in- 
deed, one  expects  every  moment  that  he  is 
going  to  describe  it  as  a  painful  necessity  to 
them.1  On  the  other  hand,  continence  is 
more  commendable  in  his  own  day;  for 
Augustine,  though  he  never  explicitly  grants 
it,  and  probably  has  no  steady  conviction 
to  that  effect,  clearly  shares  the  general  ap- 

1  In  his  earlier  work,  Contra  Faustutn,  he  confessed  he  "did  not 
yet  fully  understand  the  mystic  life  "  of  the  patriarchs.  His  progress 
had  been  rapid.  Possibly  M.  Poujoulat  and  the  other  French  writers 
on  Augustine  have  omitted  these  interesting  opinions  lest  their 
countrymen  should  claim  that  they  are  applicable  in  the  circumstances 
of  modern  France,  and  wish  to  imitate  the  patriarchal  virtue. 


The  Works  of  Augustine         389 

prehension  that  the  end  of  the  world  ap- 
proaches. But  the  most  curious  conclusion 
of  all  is  one  that  the  modern  divine  would 
reject  with  horror.  If  procreation  is  the 
essential  aim,  and  a  man's  wife  is  proved  to 
be  barren,  it  follows,  indeed,  that  he  may 
still  have  relations  with  her  to  ' '  relieve  temp- 
tation,"—  this  Augustine  grudgingly  con- 
cedes,—  but  how  can  you  forbid  him  to 
have  a  concubine  in  addition,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  rearing  children?  Augustine  can- 
not forbid  him,  he  confesses,  if  the  wife 
consents;  "it  was  lawful  to  the  patriarchs: 
whether  it  is  lawful  now  or  not,  I  should 
not  like  to  say."  Such  is  the  peculiar  and 
awful  penalty  of  logically  applying  the 
ascetic  Christian  view  of  marriage.  Nor 
does  Augustine  improve  his  position  much 
when  he  considers  the  converse  hypothesis 
of  the  man  proving  sterile.  He  will  not 
allow  the  wife  a  paramour,  because  "it  is 
in  the  nature  of  things  for  there  to  be  only 
one  loru  and  master."  He  has  no  idea  of 
woman's  equal  worth  and  dignity.  For- 
tunately, in  the  end,  when  he  is  confronted 


390  St.  Augustine 

with  a  pagan  application  of  his  principles 
—  Cato  lending  his  wife  to  a  friend  — he 
throws  logic  to  the  winds,  and  says:  "In 
our  marriages  the  sanctity  of  the  sacrament 
is  of  greater  moment  than  the  fruitfulness 
of  the  womb."  But  of  the  human  holiness 
and  beauty  of  marriage,  of  the  sacrament  of 
sexual  love,  this  leader  of  men  and  light  of 
many  ages  has  no  conception. 

Three  other  works  complete  his  theory 
of  the  foundation  of  family  life.  About  the 
year  414  he  wrote  a  book  On  the  Blessed- 
ness of  Widowhood,  He  was  as  strongly 
opposed  as  Jerome  to  the  idea  of  remarry- 
ing. He  exhorted  widows  to  take  a  vow 
of  continence,  and  declared  that  a  breach 
of  this  vow  by  remarrying  was  worse  than 
adultery.  The  practical  conclusion  that 
would  be  drawn  from  this  principle  in  that 
age  of  widows  is  obvious  enough.  Here, 
also,  he  completes  his  patriarchal  theory, 
contending  that  "the  holy  women  who 
lived  under  the  Law"  married  out  of 
obedience,  not  lust.  His  unfortunate  ideas 
are    further   developed    in   the   work    On 


The  Works  of  Augustine         391 

Adulterous  Marriages,  which  he  published 
about  419.  The  marriages  he  has  in  mind 
are  chiefly  the  unions  of  divorced  people, 
which  he  naturally  denounces.  But  he  in- 
cidentally enunciates  a  theory  which  is 
largely  reversed  in  our  day.  He  says  that 
men  are  more  culpable  for  their  infidelity 
than  women.  Why?  "  Because  they  are 
men,"  he  bluntly  replies,  with  his  usual 
depreciation  of  woman.  Still,  Augustine 
would  not  allow  that  a  woman  could  lie  to 
escape  violence;  and,  it  is  but  just  to  add, 
he  rejected  the  idea  that  it  was  lawful  to  lie 
for  the  purpose  of  gaining  converts.  These 
ideas  occur  in  his  work  On  Lying,  of  the 
year  395,  and  they  are  not  inconsistent 
with  the  teaching  of  his  later  (c.  420)  work 
Against  Lying.  Finally,  I  have  to  notice  the 
work  On  Marriage  and  Concupiscence  which 
he  wrote  in  419.  It  is  a  development  of 
one  aspect  of  his  unfortunate  theory.  Sex- 
ual feeling  is  an  unmitigated  evil,  born  of 
original  sin,  and  quite  accidental  to  mar- 
riage. Had  our  first  parents  not  sinned, 
the  propagation  of  the  race  would  proceed 


392  St.  Augustine 


^ 


to-day  with  the  tranquillity  and  mechanical 
smoothness  of  respiration.  The  condition 
of  Adam  and  Eve  was  even  more  philo- 
sophic than  that  which  Mr.  Spencer  seems 
to  anticipate  for  the  year  10,000  or  so. 

There  is  one  other  work  of  Augustine's 
of  which  the  reader  may  reasonably  de- 
mand a  brief  description.  I  have  already 
referred  to  the  book  On  the  Work  of  the 
Monks,  which  he  published  about  the  year 
400.  The  book  gives  us  a  very  interesting 
glimpse  of  the  development  of  the  monastic 
idea  in  Western  Africa.  The  immediate 
occasion  for  the  work  was  a  controversy 
which  then  agitated  the  troops  of  monks, 
as  to  whether  they  were  to  work  or  not. 
We  have  already  seen  that  the  doors  of  the 
monasteries  were  thrown  wide  open,  and 
crowds  of  members  of  the  lower  social  or- 
ders flocked  to  them.  Slaves  embraced  the 
black  tunic  in  thousands;  agricultural  la- 
bourers, ruined  curials,  and  general  labour- 
ers from  the  towns  swelled  the  vagabond 
armies.  These  monasteries  had  absorbed 
the  streams  of  gold  that  flowed  from  the 


The  Works  of  Augustine         393 

palaces  of  Proba  and  Melania,  and  they 
were  generously  supported  by  the  ordinary 
Christians.  The  result  was  that  an  enor- 
mous number  of  hypocrites  entered,  and 
the  name  of  monk,  Augustine  says,  was 
uttered  with  contempt  in  the  country.  No 
sooner  had  they  donned  the  black  robe  and 
secured  a  sustenance  than  they  spread  over 
the  provinces.  "Some  of  them,"  says 
Augustine,  "  sell  members  of  the  martyrs  — 
if  they  really  are  martyrs;  others  broaden 
their  fringes  and  phylacteries;  others  ly- 
ingly  assert  they  have  heard  that  their  par- 
ents or  relatives  live  in  this  or  that  country, 
and  say  they  are  going  to  visit  them  ;  and 
all  of  them  beg  and  demand  the  fee  of  their 
lucrative  poverty,  or  the  reward  of  their 
pretended  holiness."  Augustine  severely 
condemned  their  idleness,  and  swept  away 
their  sophistry  about  Christ's  exhortation 
neither  to  weave  nor  to  spin.  But  once 
more  he  betrays  his  unpractical  and  un- 
reasonable zeal.  They  are  not  to  attack 
the  disorder  at  its  root  by  exercising  some 
discretion  in  admitting  neophytes.    All  who 


394  St.  Augustine 

ask  are  to  be  admitted,  "even  if  they  give 
no  proof  of  emendation  of  life;  even  though 
it  be  not  clear  whether  they  have  come  for 
the  purpose  of  serving  God,  or  have  only 
fled  in  idleness  from  a  poor  and  laborious 
life,  to  be  fed  and  clothed,  and  perhaps 
honoured  by  those  who  had  once  despised 
and  beaten  them."  Alas  for  Augustine's 
vastissimum  ingenium ! 

The  remainder  of  his  works,  with  a  reser- 
vation of  the  anti-Pelagian  writings,  I  pro- 
pose to  mention  briefly.  The  chief  religious, 
theological,  and  philosophical  ideas  they 
contain  are  presented  in  other  parts  of  this 
work,  in  so  far  as  they  are  characteristic,  nor 
will  any  one  seek  even  a  compendium  of  the 
larger  works  in  a  biography  of  moderate 
proportions.  There  is,  for  instance,  the 
large  work,  On  the  Trinity,  in  fifteen  books, 
which  he  began  about  the  year  400  and  pub- 
lished in  416.  It  lies  entirely  beyond  my 
field.  The  smaller  work,  the  Manual  on 
Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity,  which  he  pub- 
lished about  421,  may  be  recommended  as  a 
short  presentment  of  his  fully  developed 


The  Works  of  Augustine         395 

views  on  moral  and  dogmatic  theology. 
Some  interest  attaches,  also,  to  the  little 
book  On  the  Care  of  the  Dead,  written  about 
the  same  time,  and  therefore  illustrative  of  his 
later  views  about  the  future  state.  Augus- 
tine commends  the  practice  of  praying  for 
the  dead,  though  he  thinks  the  prayers  will 
only  be  of  service  to  them  —  he  does  not, 
unfortunately,  develop  this  hint  at  a  purga- 
tory, and  we  know  he  maintains  the  eternity 
of  hell  —  in  proportion  to  the  righteousness 
of  their  conduct  on  earth.  Interesting,  too, 
is  the  little  work,  On  the  Catechetical  Instruc- 
tion of  the  Ignorant,  written  at  the  request 
of  a  Carthaginian  deacon  about  400.  It  is  a 
practical  and  painstaking  manual  of  direc- 
tions, pleasantly  illustrating  the  side  of  early 
church-life  which  is  indicated  in  the  title. 
The  admonition  to  wake  up  your  drowsy 
subject  occasionally  with  "something  sea- 
soned with  a  little  salt"  points  clearly  to 
Augustine's  earlier  years.  There  remain  a 
host  of  works  of  a  didactic  or  dogmatic 
character,  which  I  will  simply  enumerate, 
with  the  dates  assigned  by  the  Benedictines, 


396  St.  Augustine 


so  that  quotations  may  be  appreciated : 
On  Eighty-Three  Different  Questions  (of 
philosophy  and  Scripture),  begun  in  388; 
On  Faith  and  the  Creed,  a  sermon  delivered 
in  393;  On  the  Christian  Combat  (c.  396); 
On  Various  Questions  of  Simplicianiis 
(chiefly  from  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  and 
the  Book  of  Kings),  dated  397;  On  Faith 
in  the  Unseen  (sometime  after  399);  On  the 
Divination  of  the  Demons  (406-411);  On 
Faith  and  Works  (413);  On  Patience  (418); 
and  On  the  Eight  Questions  of  Dulcitius 
(422  or  425).  Besides  these  there  are  in- 
cluded in  his  works  special  sermons,  On  the 
Creed,  to  the  Catechumens,  On  Christian 
Discipline,  On  the  New  Canticle,  On  the 
Fourth  Day,  On  the  Flood,  On  the  Bar- 
barian Epoch,  On  the  Use  of  Fasting,  and 
On  the  Destruction  of  the  City,  mostly  of 
unknown  date.  Nor  can  1  omit  to  point 
out  that  a  large  number  of  his  two  hundred 
letters  are  really  didactic  or  dogmatic  treat- 
ises of  considerable  length. 

The   series   of  Augustine's    works   fitly 
ends  with  a  unique  achievement.     I  have 


The  Works  of  Augustine         397 

referred  at  various  times  to  his  Retractations. 
This  remarkable  examination  and  criticism 
of  his  works  was  written  in  426  or  427, 
his  seventy-second  or  seventy-third  year. 
Mindful  of  the  peril  and  the  price  of  "  much 
talking,"  the  aged  bishop  resolved  to  review 
the  whole  of  his  writings  before  his  death. 
He  did  not  live  to  revise  his  letters  and  ser- 
mons, but  we  have  a  complete  revision  of 
his  larger  works,  with  important  indications 
as  to  their  date  and  object.  "  Retracta- 
tion "  has  not  necessarily  the  meaning  in 
Latin  which  we  give  to  the  term  in  Eng- 
lish,1 as  the  hagiographers  eagerly  point 
out.  Augustine's  object  was  to  revise, 
though  he  professed  a  willingness  to  "re- 
tract" whatever  was  inaccurate  or  im- 
proper. We  have,  indeed,  a  number  of 
withdrawals,  and  may  measure  Augustine's 
fortitude  by  that  circumstance  ;  though  we 
find,  for  our  consolation,  that  he  is  far  more 
eager  to  explain  away  than  to  withdraw  in 

1  We  have  confused  retrahere  (to  withdraw)  and  retractare  (to  re- 
vise or  retouch),  and  speak  of  "retractation"  when  we  mean  "re- 
traction." 


398  St.  Augustine 

that  class  of  utterances  where  there  is  a 
real  inconsistency  between  his  earlier  and 
later  views  —  his  early  views  on  free  will 
and  later  views  on  predestination.  As  to 
his  willingness  to  retract  his  praise  of  Plato, 
or  of  human  friendship,  or  of  any  of  those 
gifts  of  nature  that  had  gladdened  and  en- 
riched his  earlier  years,  we  can  but  sorrow- 
fully commend  his  high  intention.  The 
bloody  pages  of  mediaeval  history  rise  be- 
fore us  when  we  dwell  on  his  later  ideas. 

From  this  authoritative  list  of  Augustine's 
writings,  as  well  as  from  the  distinctive 
character  of  his  work,  the  task  of  separating 
the  mass  of  mediaeval  forgeries  and  inaccu- 
rate descriptions  has  been  comparatively 
easy.  No  doubt,  the  list  tended  to  encour- 
age forgery  at  times.  When  one  of  the 
works  mentioned  was  unknown  to  medi- 
aeval readers,  some  leisured  monk  would 
gladly  undertake  to  supply  the  deficiency. 
In  fact,  the  eagerness  to  imitate  the  great 
doctor  was  so  precipitate,  that  even  works 
which  Augustine  says  he  had  never  written 
(on  rhetoric,  dialectics,  etc.)  were  ascribed 


The  Works  of  Augustine         399 

to  him.  However,  the  mass  of  Augus- 
tinian  literature  has  been  very  carefully 
expurgated  by  the  Benedictines.  In  the 
result  many  writings  have  been  rejected 
as  indubitably  spurious  on  which  Roman 
Catholic  writers  still  rely.  This  is  notably 
the  case  with  regard  to  the  cult  of  the  Vir- 
gin. In  Liguori's  famous  Glories  of  Mary, 
a  fitting  atmosphere  for  false  quotations, 
we  have  a  number  of  passages  from  spuri- 
ous works,  in  which  Augustine  is  credited 
with  pronounced  devotion  to  Mary.  Still 
worse  is  the  case  of  the  Roman  Breviary, 
in  which  a  sermon  attributed  to  Augustine 
is  still  read  as  his  on  the  Feast  of  the  Na- 
tivity of  the  Virgin.  Augustine  never  used 
language  in  any  degree  approaching  that 
which  is  ascribed  to  him;  the  sermon  is  an 
undisputed  forgery.  He  had  no  personal 
feeling  towards  the  Mother  of  Christ,  and 
no  idea  whatever  of  a  public  worship  (the 
term  used  in  the  Roman  Catechism)  of  her. 
He  speaks  with  great  respect  of  her,  but  has 
no  idea  of  a  practical  relation  of  prayer, 
intercession,  or  veneration.    With  regard  to 


400  St.  Augustine 

the  worship  of  the  saints  in  general,  the 
champions  of  Protestantism  do  not  always 
appreciate  the  variations  of  Augustine's 
views.  It  is  quite  true  that,  as  I  have 
shown,  he  repudiated  "the  worship  [cul- 
tus]  of  dead  men"  in  his  earlier  works,  but 
he  yielded  largely  to  the  growing  popular 
feeling  in  later  years.  In  the  sixteenth 
chapter  we  shall  find  a  striking  exemplifica- 
tion of  this. 

Probably  most  people  of  our  own  day 
who  would  make  an  impartial  and  adequate 
study  of  Augustine's  writings  would  gather 
an  impression  of  a  great  mind,  more  subtle 
than  powerful,  seeking  judgment  and  ex- 
pression in  circumstances  of  exceptional 
hindrance.  The  occupations  of  his  office 
permitted  only  a  hasty  and  spasmodic  di- 
rection of  his  thoughts  to  higher  specu- 
lation after  the  year  of  his  ordination.  The 
intellectual  condition  of  his  time  and  his 
country  did  not  afford  the  atmosphere  of 
culture  and  philosophy  which  promotes  a 
healthy  development.  The  moral  reaction 
of    his    mind    after    conversion,    and    the 


The  Works  of  Augustine         401 

incessant  brooding  on  the  least  humane  dog- 
mas of  early  Christianity,  perverted  his  moral 
judgment  and  feeling.  The  bitter  sectarian 
controversies  he  had  to  direct,  and  the 
responsibility  for  the  destruction  of  error 
which  his  office  seemed  to  lay  upon  him, 
narrowed  his  thoughts  and  hardened  feel- 
ings which  should  impose  a  salutary  check 
on  a  ruthless  logic.  A  French  writer  who 
has  made  a  careful  and,  it  seems,  impartial 
study  of  his  "  system  "  passes  this  severe 
criticism  on  it : 

Taken  literally  and  in  certain  pronouncements, 
though  these  are  usually  episodic  and  have  been 
abused,  his  teaching  destroys  liberty  of  conscience, 
justifies  slavery,  shakes  the  foundations  of  private 
property,  reduces  history  to  special  pleading,  en- 
thrones theocracy,  and  at  the  same  time,  in  various 
respects,  discourages  toil  and  the  love  of  glory,  ham- 
pers the  march  of  civilisation,  and  paralyses  the  energy 
of  all  science,  especially  of  the  physical  and  natural 
sciences.1 

Each  point  in  that  indictment  can  be  rig- 
orously substantiated;  indeed,  we  have  al- 
ready seen  the  grounds  for  most  of  it.  But, 
in  justice  to  Augustine,  these  defects  must 

1  M.  Nourisson,  in  his  Philosophie  de  Saint  Augustin. 


4-02  St.  Augustine 

be  noticed  in  conjunction  with  the  grave 
defects  of  his  intellectual  environment. 
Nor  can  we  fail  to  see  that  they  are  fre- 
quently the  defects  of  his  qualities.  If  we 
are  to  regard  as  sublime  his  conception  of 
the  two  cities,  we  cannot  complain  of  his 
logical  application  of  that  conception  to  life. 
If  it  be  a  species  of  moral  heroism  to  keep 
one's  eyes  fixed  long  on  the  sun,  the  ensu- 
ing inability  to  see  the  things  of  earth  in 
their  true  colours  and  proportions  must  be 
pardoned.  To  present  the  matter  in  an- 
other way,  there  never  was  and  never  will 
be  —  there  cannot  be—  a  life  that  offers  com- 
manding heights  of  supernatural  exaltation 
without  corresponding  dips  below  the  level 
of  common  human  feeling. 

As  to  Augustine's  erudition,  Mr.  Marcus 
Dods  seems  to  express  a  general  feeling 
when  he  describes  it  as  "varied,  if  not 
exact  or  profound."  Erasmus  would  not 
grant  him  "  a  solid  knowledge  of  the  sacred 
sciences."  Mozley  calls  him  "a  one-sided 
interpreter."  Mosheim  is  equally  critical. 
Baur  observes  that  his  scholarship  was  not 


The  Works  of  Augustine         403 

equal  to  his  intellect.  One  could  hardly 
expect  a  different  judgment  after  studying 
his  career.  For  the  first  ten  years  of  his 
mature  life  he  was  impelled  by  an  extra- 
ordinary craving  for  knowledge.  He  de- 
voured—  I  have  explained  why  I  cannot 
say  he  assimilated  —  the  sciences  of  his  day 
with  great  avidity.  Even  in  this  period, 
however,  the  world  of  Greek  literature  was 
closed  for  him,  save  for  a  few  glimpses 
through  the  window  of  translation.  Then 
came  the  reaction  on  his  humane  ardour, 
and  a  growing  contempt  for  secular  know- 
ledge. In  the  years  when  his  early  and 
untutored  cramming  should  have  been  cor- 
rected and  completed,  his  Livy  and  Varro, 
Cicero  and  Plato,  Horace  and  Ovid,  his 
astronomy,  history,  and  philosophy,  were 
pushed  aside  with  pious  disdain.  If  that 
has  increased  his  saintliness,  he  cannot 
complain  that  it  has  diminished  the  reputa- 
tion of  his  scholarship.  We  may  still  admit, 
with  Villemain,  that  he  is  Vhomme  le  plus 
etonnant  de  I'eglise  La  tine. 
Further,  one  cannot  make  even  a  cursory 


404  St.  Augustine 

study  of  Augustine's  writings  without  notic- 
ing the  profound  changes  of  his  thoughts 
even  after  his  conversion.  To  construct  a 
scheme  of  Augustine's  "system"  —  as  the 
Germans  say  —  would  be  to  write  a  com- 
pendium of  dogmatic  theology.  Most  of 
the  parts  would  be  familiar  enough,  nor 
would  it  be  any  information  to  hear  that 
Augustine  accepted  them  —  such  are  the 
problems  of  the  nature  of  God,  the  Trinity, 
the  Incarnation,  and  Scripture.  The  Christ- 
ian teaching  on  these  points  he  readily 
accepted  with  the  Gospels.  The  chief 
changes  we  find  were  with  regard  to 
philosophy  and  his  view  of  human  life 
and  human  nature.  In  his  earlier  Christian 
years  Augustine  was  bent  on  retaining  his 
Platonist  philosophy  as  the  basis  of  his 
theology  —  as  supplying  what  the  modern 
theologian  calls  the  indispensable  prceam- 
bula  fidei.  The  central  idea  of  it  was  the 
mind's  intuition  of  eternal  realities  (truth 
and  justice)  and  eternal  truths  (moral  and 
intellectual  principles).  From  this  he  pro- 
ceeded with   confidence  to   the  existence 


The  Works  of  Augustine         405 

and  attributes  of  God  and  the  spirituality 
of  the  soul.  Signs  and  wonders  were  no 
longer  wrought  on  earth  or  written  on  the 
heavens  to  compel  men  to  listen  to  God; 
they  must  be  induced  by  this  philosophic 
reasoning.  Hence  reason  was  a  divine  gift 
and  Plato  a  divine  thinker.  To  point  out 
the  powerlessness  of  Plato  and  Varro  to 
convince  the  multitude,  and  the  hopeless 
obscurity  of  the  popular  mind  in  face  of 
these  high  truths,  was  to  conclude  that 
God,  in  His  justice,  had  given  the  world 
a  more  authoritative  teacher  than  Plato, 
and  a  more  luminous  and  unfading  gospel 
than  that  which  was  faintly  traced  in  reason 
and  conscience.  Thus  were  the  Incarna- 
tion and  the  Christian  Bible  introduced; 
and  this  Bible  revealed  features  of  the 
Divine  nature  (such  as  the  Trinity)  which 
were  above  the  gaze  of  reason,  and  positive 
enactments  (baptism,  church-membership, 
the  necessity  of  grace,  etc.)  which  were 
beyond  the  sphere  of  conscience. 

In  the  Church  of  Rome  to-day  we  have 
a  perfect  illustration  of  the  change  which 


406  St.  Augustine 

came  over  Augustine's  philosophy.  In  her 
academies,  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  study, 
her  teaching  is  rationalistic.  She  leads  the 
inquiring  thinker  up  the  very  steps  that 
Augustine  ascends  in  his  early  works,  and 
insists  that  "reason  precedes  faith."  But 
in  the  streets  and  the  market-places  she 
reverses  the  order,  and  demands  faith  as  a 
condition  of  understanding.  So  far  is  this 
true  that  the  world  at  large  is  ignorant  of 
her  Academic  doctrine,  and  only  knows 
Rome  as  the  champion  of  authority  and  the 
rebuker  of  reason.  When  Augustine  passed 
from  his  academy,  his  Epicurean  fellowship, 
and  monastic  community,  to  the  streets  of 
life,  his  Platonism  gradually  faded,  and  his 
maxim  was  reversed.  He  found  neither 
reason  nor  conscience  in  his  people,  but  he 
found  a  willingness  to  accept  any  gospel 
that  had  weighty  pretensions  and  an  air  of 
magic  about  its  history.  He  found  the  few 
reasoners  the  most  troublesome  and  re- 
bellious of  his  flock.  So  by  and  by  he 
formulated  the  famous  "faith  goeth  before 
understanding,"  which  has  lived  with  his 


The  Works  of  Augustine         407 

memory;  and  reason  became  a  "giftless 
gift  of  the  enemy,"  and  Plato  an  "impi- 
ous man."  The  Agora  prevailed  over  the 
Academy. 

The  second  and  the  greater  change  was 
in  his  view  of  man's  nature  and  life.  His 
first  conception  of  the  Christian  teaching 
was  as  an  additional  light  to  his  reason  and 
conscience,  confirming  and  enlarging  their 
view  of  life,  and  bringing  with  it  the  pro- 
mise of  an  undefined  assistance  to  the  will. 
It  seemed  at  first  to  confirm  the  optimism 
he  had  recently  learned  from  Plotinus.  But 
this  did  not  last  long.  The  Manichean  view 
of  the  world  was  still  deeply  rooted  in  his 
mind,  and  the  moral  reaction  of  his  conver- 
sion only  served  to  deepen  his  sense  of  the 
world's  inherent  evil.  Moreover,  the  teach- 
ing of  Genesis  and  of  St.  Paul  soon  suggested 
what  seemed  to  be  a  way  of  reconciling  the 
optimism  of  the  Neo-Platonists  and  the  pes- 
simism of  the  Manicheans,  and  making  a 
final  peace  with  the  world.  The  pivot  of 
his  optimism  must  be  transferred  to  heaven, 
and  then  the  earth  and  all  the  children  of 


408  St.  Augustine 

men  could  be  freely  handed  over  to  the 
damnation  of  original  sin.  The  ascetic 
teaching  of  Christ  fully  harmonised  with 
this  theory.  Since  it  was  only  a  finite 
devil,  multiplied  vaguely  into  "legions," 
that  played  havoc  with  the  world,  the  su- 
premacy of  God  was  unimpaired;  and  since 
man  himself  had  caused  this,  by  breaking  a 
deliberate  bargain,  the  sanctity  and  justice 
of  God  were  untouched.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  generosity  and  love  of  God  had 
opened  a  higher  world  to  man  instead  of 
the  one  he  had  forfeited,  and  we  were  to 
make  our  way  thither  with  all  the  caution 
and  anxiety  which  were  demanded  by  its 
lofty  character  and  the  devil-beset  nature 
of  our  path. 

Reasoning  in  this  way,  Augustine  receded 
gradually  from  the  optimism  of  Plotinus, 
partly  following,  partly  constructing,  the 
familiar  lines  of  Catholic  theology.  From 
this  root  sprang  inevitably  the  most  repel- 
lent of  his  opinions  —  the  placid  damnation 
of  the  unconscious  babe  as  well  as  the  ap- 
palling violence  done  to  the  conscience  of 


The  Works  of  Augustine        4°9 

the  sincere  Donatist,  the  contempt  of  sexual 
love  (with  its  sinister  results),  as  well  as 
the  extinction  of  patriotic  feeling.  The 
pressure  and  the  horrors  of  the  schism  led 
to  an  exaggeration  of  one  application  of  his 
theory,  and  Pelagius's  attempt  to  restore 
some  dignity  to  human  nature  occasioned 
another  exaggeration.  The  one  we  have 
already  studied,  and  the  other  we  may  now 
examine  at  some  length. 


Chapter    XV 

Augustine  and  Pelagius 

IF  it  was  a  singular  advantage  to  the 
*  Christian  Church  to  have  such  a  man  as 
Augustine  at  hand  to  meet  the  Donatist 
schism  and  the  Pelagian  heresy,  it  was, 
nevertheless,  a  peculiar  mischance  for  Augus- 
tine himself  that  he  had  to  confront  those 
hostile  movements  in  his  later  years.  One 
is  tempted  sometimes  to  wonder  how  dif- 
ferent the  structure  of  Christian  theology 
might  have  been  if  Augustine  had  faced 
those  systems  in  his  earlier  sacerdotal  years, 
when  his  strong  human  sympathy  still 
found  something  lovable  in  the  city  of  men, 
and  the  gentle  charm  of  the  better  Neo-Pla- 
tonist  ideas  still  lingered  about  his  thoughts. 
Twenty  years  of  episcopal  experience  had 
completed  the  transfer  of  his  affection  and 

his  sympathy  to  the  higher  world.     He  had 

410 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  411 

learned  to  trample  on  the  consciences  of  his 
fellows  for  the  sake  of  what  now  seemed  to 
him  a  higher  interest.  Donatism  had  de- 
veloped in  him  a  crude  idea  of  church-mem- 
bership and  outward  conformity  which  has 
led  to  the  writing  of  many  pages  of  church- 
history  that  we  would  gladly  suppress. 
And  no  sooner  had  Augustine  returned  to 
his  spiritual  charge  after  the  defeat  of  the 
Donatists  than  a  new  danger  arose.  He 
heard  that  some  monks  were  spreading  the 
notion  that  human  nature  had  sufficient  no- 
bility to  appreciate  and  sufficient  strength 
to  achieve  the  highest  standard  of  holiness; 
and  forthwith  he  began  to  develop  a  doc- 
trine of  the  utter  degradation  of  our  nature. 
It  seems  unquestionable  that  some  part 
of  what  we  now  call  the  British  Isles  gave 
birth  to  the  author  of  one  of  the  most 
amiable  heresies  that  ever  vexed  the  soul  of 
Christendom.  Jerome,  always  more  lively 
than  accurate,  describes  Pelagius  in  one 
place  as  "a  big,  fat  dog  from  Albion,"  and 
in  another  as  "bloated  with  the  pottage  of 
the  Scots  "  (or  Irish).  Prosper  calls  him  "  the 


412  St.  Augustine 


c^ 


British  serpent";  and  Augustine,  Orosius, 
and  Mercator  frequently  speak  of  him  as 
British.1  Orosius  adds  that  he  was  born  of 
poor  parents,  and  Jerome  affords  many  brief 
descriptions  of  his  person;  but  the  whole 
of  the  clerical  attacks  on  him  —  except  that 
of  Augustine  —  are  vitiated  by  a  most  obvi- 
ous bitterness  of  temper  and  personal  hos- 
tility. One  physical  feature  does  seem  to 
emerge  with  some  clearness  from  the  mass 
of  reckless  qualifications;  he  seems  to  have 
been  a  man  of  unusually  large  build.  Jerome 
puts  it  that  "he  could  make  more  use  of 
his  weight  than  his  tongue."  Jerome  had 
—  naturally  — not  heard  of  the  ascetic  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  who  had  to  have  a  large 
slice  cut  out  of  the  table  of  his  monastery 
to  accommodate  the  anterior  part  of  his 
person.  But  the  implication  that  Pelagius 
was  as  deficient  in  moral  weight  as  he  was 
redundant  in  physical  is  one  of  Jerome's 
reckless  turns  of  phrase.  Augustine,  who 
studied  his  works  carefully,  grants  him,  in 

1  But  the  statement  that  he  belonged  to  the  Bangor  monastery, 
and  that  his  real  name  was  Morgan,  rests  solely  on  a  late  and  uncon- 
vincing legend 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  4X3 

several  places,  a  considerable  ability.  He 
was  much  esteemed  by  the  ex-senator 
Paulinus  of  Nola,  and  Jerome  and  Augustine 
had  great  difficulty  in  averting  from  him 
the  admiration  of  many  other  cultured  and 
noble  Romans.  The  integrity  and  eleva- 
tion of  his  character  were  acclaimed  on  all 
sides  in  his  earlier  years.  Augustine  spoke 
highly  of  his  virtue  until  his  obstinacy  in 
heresy  made  that  no  longer  possible;  and 
even  then  Augustine  did  not  sanction  the 
charge  of  sensualism  urged  by  the  heated 
Orosius  and  Jerome.  The  hagiographers 
naturally  conclude  that  he  was  virtuous  un- 
til he  fell  into  heresy,  and  then  he  con- 
tracted the  vices  his  enemies  attribute  to 
him.  The  course  of  our  narrative  will  prob- 
ably suggest  that  the  only  change  was  in 
his  antagonists,  especially  as  the  heresy  is 
found  in  his  earliest  works. 

There  is  an  eagerness  shown  by  ecclesi- 
astical writers  to  trace  the  germs  of  Pela- 
gianism  to  the  Eastern  Church.  No  doubt 
there  is  some  plausibility  in  the  notion  of 
tracing  the  theory  of  the  strength  of  human 


4H  St.  Augustine 

nature  to  the  energetic  Origen,  but  the  East- 
ern temperament  in  general  would  be  even 
less  disposed  than  the  Roman  to  originate 
so  sturdy  a  heresy.  The  long  reluctance  of 
the  East  to  condemn  it  is  easily  understood 
for  other  reasons,  as  we  shall  see.  Even  if 
the  Eastern  monk  Rufinus  had  influence 
over  Pelagius,  as  Marius  Mercator  says,  it 
does  not  at  all  follow  that  he  inspired  the 
heretical  idea.  We  know  with  certainty 
only  that  Pelagius  won  great  repute  for  holi- 
ness and  asceticism  at  Rome  in  the  first 
decade  of  the  fifth  century.  The  monastic 
idea  had  travelled  swiftly  from  Rome  to 
Gaul  and  Britain,  and  had  created  a  number 
of  fervent  monasteries,  besides  inspiring  a 
number  of  unattached  or  itinerant  monks. 
But  we  can  well  imagine  the  effect  of  an 
acquaintance  with  the  low  moral  quality  of 
the  Roman  Church  on  the  stalwart  ascetic. 
Probably  enough  his  earnest  exhortations 
were  met  with  an  Italian  shrug  of  the  shoul- 
ders and  an  appeal  to  the  weakness  of 
human  nature.  Certainly  the  moral  vigour 
of  the  individual  was  not  promoted  by  the 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  415 

rapidly  growing  system  of  external  aids  to 
sanctity  —  the  worship  of  the  saints  and  of 
relics,  and  the  multiplication  of  sacraments 
and  sacramentals.  Pelagius  was  not  a  priest. 
He  had  not  the  sacerdotal  bias  in  favour  of 
ritual  and  objective  sanctification.  We  need 
no  speculation  about  Oriental  ideas  to  help 
us  in  understanding  the  growth  of  his  main 
idea.  He  would  at  once  insist  on  that 
natural  strength  of  which  he  had  so  clear  a 
consciousness,  especially  if  we  may  assume 
as  we  seem  entitled  to  do,  that  he  was  a 
man  of  sober  temperament  and  equable  life. 
And  if  the  scriptural  doctrine  of  original  sin 
were  pleaded  by  more  passionate  temper- 
aments and  moral  cowards,  as  pointing  to  a 
primeval  corruption  of  our  nature,  he  would 
resent  it  as  a  pretext  or  subterfuge,  and  en- 
deavour to  explain  away  the  words  of  Gen- 
esis and  St.  Paul. 

We  know  enough  of  the  Roman  Church 
to  learn  without  surprise  that  Pelagius  in- 
curred no  reproach  as  long  as  he  remained 
in  the  Eternal  City.  His  elevated  character 
and  zeal  attached  many  of  the  best  of  the 


4*6  St.  Augustine 

Italians  to  him,  such  as  Paulinus,  and  a 
large  number  of  the  Roman  clergy.  In  fact, 
there  is  an  amusing  and  instructive  illustra- 
tion of  the  quality  of  his  teaching.  He 
wrote  three  works  during  his  stay  at  Rome, 
one  on  the  Trinity,  another  comprising  a 
collection  of  moral  maxims  from  Scripture, 
and  a  third  which  consisted  of  a  commen- 
tary on  St.  Paul's  Epistles.  In  the  latter 
work  his  characteristic  ideas  were  bound  to 
find  expression,  and  in  point  of  fact  Augus- 
tine detects  many  heretical  passages  in  it  a 
few  years  afterwards.  But  not  only  did  this 
work  receive  nothing  but  approbation  from 
the  Christians  of  Rome,  it  was  actually 
attributed  at  a  later  date  to  Pope  Gelasius, 
and  then,  for  several  centuries,  to  Jerome 
himself,  the  most  bitter  opponent  and  critic 
of  its  real  author.  That  is  a  unique  and  pre- 
cious fact  in  the  history  of  heresy.  Further, 
he  wrote  a  long  letter  on  nature  and  grace 
to  Paulinus  in  405,  in  which  Augustine's 
practised  faculty  discovered  —  ten  years 
afterwards  — a  complete  betrayal  of  his 
heresy. 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  4J7 

Pelagius  was  brought  into  conflict  with 
Augustine's  ideas  a  few  years  before  their 
first  personal  encounter.  An  African  bishop 
who  was  disputing  with  him  at  Rome  quot- 
ed the  well-known  passage  from  the  Con- 
fessions: "Give  us  that  Thou  commandest, 
and  then  command  what  Thou  wilt."  Pela- 
gius "  warmly  resisted  "  the  sentiment,  says 
Augustine.  If  we  have  not  already  the 
strength  to  observe  the  commandments,  the 
command  itself  is  dishonoured,  and  moral 
indolence  is  perilously  encouraged.  But  it 
was  not  until  the  year  410  that  he  met  the 
great  African  bishop.  He  left  Rome  in  409, 
when  Alaric  was  threatening  the  city,  and 
sailed  for  Syracuse  with  his  pupil  and  com- 
panion, Ccelestius.  Ccelestius  was  an  ad- 
vocate of  some  capacity,  who  had  been 
converted  to  an  ascetic  life  by  Pelagius. 
Prosper  affirms  that  he  was  sexless,  from  a 
congenital  defect,  so  that  he  was  providen- 
tially equipped  with  a  fine  qualification  for 
the  defence  of  Pelagianism.  However,  the 
two  monks  proceeded  with  the  famous 
Rufinus  to  Syracuse,  and  shortly  afterwards 


418  St.  Augustine 

sailed  for  Hippo.  Augustine  was  occupied 
with  the  Donatists  at  Carthage  at  the  time, 
and  they  went  to  see  him  there.  They  saw 
little  of  each  other,  however,  owing  to  Au- 
gustine's preoccupation,  and  Pelagius  soon 
departed  for  the  East,  leaving  Coelestius  to 
sow  the  good  seed  in  Africa. 

It  was,  apparently,  in  410  that  they  met 
at  Carthage,  but  we  do  not  find  Augustine 
speaking  of  the  new  heresy  until  about  412, 
when  the  conflict  opens.  In  that  year 
Coelestius  sought  ordination  at  Carthage, 
and  the  bishop,  Aurelius,  directed  that  the 
new  ideas  which  were  attributed  to  him 
should  be  examined  by  a  synod  of  his  pro- 
vince. A  deacon  named  Paulinus  drew  up 
the  indictment,  and  succeeded  in  fastening 
the  charge  of  heresy  on  the  candidate  for  the 
priesthood.  The  points  of  the  charge 
were,  that  Adam  was  created  mortal,  and 
would  have  died  whether  he  sinned  or  not, 
and  that  his  sin  entailed  no  punishment  on 
his  offspring;  that  infants  are  born  in  the 
condition  of  Adam  before  his  fall,  and  that 
even  if  they  are  not  baptised  they  have 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  419 

eternal  life  ;  that  the  race  does  not  die  in 
the  sin  of  Adam,  nor  rise  again  in  the  resur- 
rection of  Christ;  and  that  the  Law,  no  less 
than  the  Gospel,  introduces  men  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  and  there  were  men 
living  without  sin  even  before  the  coming 
of  Christ.  Thus  the  simple  Pelagian  idea 
had  already  been  confronted  with  texts  from 
Scripture  and  points  of  ritual,  and  was  rap- 
idly growing  into  a  theological  system. 
Augustine  was  not  present  at  this  synod 
(he  belonged  to  the  Numidian,  not  the  Pro- 
consular province),  but  it  is  easy  to  see  his 
inspiration  in  the  arguments  of  Paulinus, 
and  shortly  afterwards  he  occupies  himself 
openly  with  the  disputed  questions. 

Ccelestius  was  excommunicated,  and  de- 
parted for  the  East;  but,  as  at  Rome  and  in 
Sicily,  he  had  left  a  number  of  disciples  be- 
hind. Augustine  begins  to  discuss  errors 
about  nature  and  grace  in  his  letters  and 
sermons.  Theologians  usually  observe  that 
Augustine  was  eminently  fitted  by  his  own 
spiritual  experience  for  combating  the  new 
doctrine.   The  Pelagians,  on  the  other  hand, 


420  St.  Augustine 

maintained  that  their  doctrine  was  not  new; 
that  it  was  Augustine's  Manichean  taint,  or 
a  lingering  feeling  of  ubiquitous  devilry, 
that  inspired  his  novel  versions  of  original 
sin  and  the  primeval  corruption  of  human 
nature.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Augus- 
tine had  readily  surrendered  his  Manichean 
theory  of  the  dual  character  of  human  nat- 
ure for  a  Christian  dualism  which  seemed 
to  meet  the  facts  of  consciousness  equally 
well.  Instead  of  a  divine  soul  and  a  diabol- 
ical soul,  he  came  to  believe  in  an  element 
of  corruption  warring  against  a  divinely  im- 
planted ideal.  The  compact  with  Adam 
and  the  original  sin  shifted  the  responsi- 
bility of  this  corruption  from  God,  so  that 
he  felt  himself  free  to  exaggerate  it  as  much 
as  he  pleased  without  a  shadow  of  reflec- 
tion on  God's  sanctity.  And  what  could  be 
more  apparent,  both  in  the  memory  of  his 
own  struggle  and  in  the  world  about  him, 
than  this  appalling  corruption  and  resistance 
to  every  elevating  influence  ?  Paul  had 
been  so  convincing  because  he  started 
throughout  from  this  fact  of  consciousness. 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  421 

And  when  St.  Paul  went  on  to  say  that  only 
"  the  grace  of  God  "  could  lift  us  above  this 
awful  corruption  of  our  nature,  he  seemed 
to  be  pointing  an  almost  equally  obvious 
moral.  In  this  way  aboriginal  corruption 
and  the  necessity  for  "grace  "  (vaguely  con- 
ceived as  Divine  assistance)  were  facts  both 
of  consciousness  and  Scripture  for  Augus- 
tine. He  felt  no  disposition  whatever  to 
explain  away  St.  Paul's  vigorous  present- 
ment of  that  dual  fact,  nor  could  he  sympa- 
thise with,  or  see  any  honest  reason  for 
such  an  extenuation.  Moreover,  he  was 
quite  insensible  to  the  force  of  the  ethical 
considerations  that  moved  Pelagius  —  that 
it  was  unjust  to  punish  the  race  for  the  sin 
of  Adam;  that  it  was  barbarous  to  damn  an 
infant  that  had  never  known  sin;  that  to 
deny  the  power  of  the  will  was  to  deny  its 
responsibility;  and  that  to  create  a  defective 
nature  and  then  introduce  a  complementary 
super-nature  was  unworthy  of  Infinite  Wis- 
dom. These  objections  never  touched  the 
heart  of  Augustine,  and  his  subtle  mind 
coldly  disposed  of  them  without  difficulty. 


422  St.  Augustine 

The  modern  cynic  is  apt  to  observe  that 
they  were  really  disputing  whether  the 
power  for  good  which  both  admitted  to 
exist  in  man  (or  there  would  be  no  question 
of  responsibility  and  personal  sin)  was  to  be 
called  natural  or  supernatural,  will  or  grace. 
However  that  may  be,  each  had  his  fact  of 
consciousness — Pelagius  his  sense  of  power 
and  liberty,  and  Augustine  his  sense  of  cor- 
ruption —  and  his  ethical  or  scriptural  super- 
structure; and  in  the  stress  of  controversy 
neither  could  calmly  survey  the  whole 
ground.  Pelagius  entirely  believed  that 
Augustine's  outlook  was  vitiated  by  his 
long  attachment  to  Manicheism;  and 
Augustine  was  sincerely  unable  to  see  any 
reason  except  a  criminal  pride  for  his  adver- 
sary's exaltation  of  human  nature. 

This,  at  least,  it  is  gratifying  to  discover: 
Augustine  long  maintained  an  attitude  of 
gentle  and  affectionate  forbearance  towards 
the  persons  of  Pelagius  and  Coelestius,  and 
he  never,  even  in  the  most  heated  stages 
of  the  conflict,  descended  to  the  vulgarity 
and  bitterness  of  Jerome  and  Orosius.     In 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  423 

his  earlier  letters  (140,  143,  157,  etc.), 
sermons  (170,  174,  175,  etc.),  and  works, 
he  refrained  from  mentioning  Pelagius  and 
his  friend.  It  was  not  until  Pelagius  re- 
sorted to  undeniable  equivocation  that  he 
began  to  attack  his  person. 

It  was  in  412  that  Augustine  wrote  his 
first  work  against  the  new  ideas.  Marcel- 
linus,  the  religious-minded  official  who  had 
presided  at  the  Donatist  conference,  con- 
sulted him  on  the  Pelagian  theories  which 
he  found  prevalent  in  Carthage,  and  he 
was  answered  in  a  work  On  the  Deserts 
and  Remission  of  Sin.  The  practice  of  bap- 
tising infants  had  become  one  of  the  most 
severe  tests  of  the  new  ideas,  and  Au- 
gustine at  once  laid  down  his  well-known 
belief  with  regard  to  them.  The  jjnbap- 
tised  infant  will  be  punished,  he  says,  but 
"very  lightly";  it  cannot  be  with  Christ, 
so  it  must  be  with  the  Devil  (Book  1.). 
When  Marellinus  urges  the  ethical  objec- 
tion to  this,  he  says  (Book  in.)  that  he 
"cannot  refute  their  arguments"  (he  af- 
fected to  do  so  later),  and  can  only  point 


424  St.  Augustine 

to  the  Scriptures.  Marcellinus  was  per- 
plexed by  his  statement  that,  although  man 
could,  with  the  Divine  assistance,  avoid  all 
sin,  no  human  being,  except  Mary,  had 
succeeded  in  doing  so.  This  elicited  an- 
other anti-Pelagian  work,  On  the  Letter  and 
the  Spirit,  in  which  he  gives  a  finely  con- 
ceived and  skilful  explanation  of  the  maxim 
that  "the  letter  kills  and  the  spirit  quick- 
ens." The  light  of  conscience  and  of  Scrip- 
ture may  only  serve  to  illumine  a  man's 
divergence  from  the  moral  ideal.  In  the 
following  year  Pelagius  wrote  a  friendly 
letter  to  Augustine,  and  received  an  equally 
friendly  and  respectful  answer.  In  414,  how- 
ever, the  conflict  became  more  pronounced. 
A  certain  Hilary  wrote  to  Augustine  from 
Sicily,  complaining  of  the  alarming  notions 
which  flourished  there  since  the  visit  of 
Pelagius  and  Ccelestius,  and  Augustine  re- 
plied at  great  length.  Then  he  was  ap- 
proached on  the  subject  by  two  young  men 
of  culture  whom  Pelagius  had  converted 
to  the  monastic  life.  Timasius  and  James 
seem  to  have  heard  of  Augustine's  denunci- 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  425 

ation  of  the  new  ideas,  and  they  send  him 
one  of  Pelagius's  writings.  The  work  con- 
firmed Augustine's  opinion  of  the  danger 
of  the  heresy,  and  he  replied  to  it  in  a 
book  On  Nature  and  Grace,  In  this  work 
he  boldly  meets  the  ethical  difficulties  of 
Pelagius,  affirming  that  the  condemnation  of 
the  race  to  eternal  punishment  for  Adam's 
sin  was  perfectly  just,  and  the  sentence 
could  with  absolute  justice  have  been 
rigorously  carried  out  on  every  individual. 
Shortly  afterwards  two  Sicilian  bishops 
send  him  a  list  of  Pelagian  arguments  which 
is  circulating  in  their  province,  and  he  re- 
peats his  criticisms  in  a  work  On  the  Per- 
fection of  Human  Justice. 

But  the  chief  interest  of  the  struggle 
passes  for  a  few  years  from  West  to  East,  and 
we  cannot  follow  Augustine's  later  activity 
very  well  unless  we  glance  for  a  moment 
at  the  course  of  events  in  Palestine.  Cce- 
lestius  had  received  ordination  at  Ephesus, 
and  Pelagius  was  continuing  his  mission  at 
Jerusalem,  untroubled  save  for  the  impo- 
tent vituperation  of  the  monk  of  Bethlehem, 


426  St.  Augustine 

when  a  hot-tempered  young  Spanish  priest 
came  upon  the  scene,  straight  from  the 
feet  of  Augustine.  I  have  described  how 
Orosius  came  to  Hippo  in  41s,  chiefly  to 
consult  Augustine  on  the  heresies  of  the 
Priscillianists  and  Origenists.  Augustine 
sent  him  on  to  Jerome,  and  it  is  not  un- 
natural to  assume  that  he  recommended 
an  interest  in  the  proceedings  of  Pelagius 
at  Jerusalem.  At  all  events  we  learn  from 
Orosius  (our  only  authority,  unfortunately) 
that  when  the  Bishop  of  Jerusalem  held  the 
customary  synod  of  his  clergy  in  July,  415, 
he  invited  both  Orosius  and  Pelagius  to 
attend.  Orosius  was  summoned  to  speak 
first,  and  he  told  of  the  condemnation  of 
Coelestius  and  the  work  which  Augustine 
was  writing  against  Pelagius.  The  monk 
was  then  introduced,  and  informed  of  the 
accusation.  "  What  is  Augustine  to  me  ?  " 
he  coolly  asked.  And  when  the  young 
zealot  hastened  to  reply,  the  Bishop  quietly 
interjected,  "I  am  Augustine  here,"  and 
bade  them  discuss  the  matter  peaceably. 
In  the  end  Pelagius  was  acquitted,  and  the 


Augustine  and  Pelagius         427 

question  was  referred,  at  the  demand  of 
Orosius,  to  the  decision  of  the  Latin  Church.1 
Orosius  retired  to  Jerome's  cell  for  conso- 
lation—  the  charge  of  heresy  having  been 
shifted  to  his  own  shoulders  during  the 
synod  —  and  the  Latin  world  was  soon 
acquainted  with  the  situation. 

The  next  move  of  the  orthodox  Latins 
was  equally  unsuccessful,  and  hardly  more 
creditable.  Towards  the  end  of  the  year 
415,  a  couple  of  Gallic  bishops,  Heros  and 
Lazarus,  who  had  been  deposed  or  driven 
from  their  sees,  appeared  at  the  court  of 
Eulogius,  Bishop  of  Cassarea,  and  laid  an 
accusation  against  Pelagius.  Of  the  char- 
acter of  the  accusers  it  is  impossible  to 
judge;  Zosimus,  Bishop  of  Rome,  speaks 
very  unfavourably  of  them,  though  Prosper 
affirms  their  innocence.  However,  these 
men  had  drawn  up  an  indictment,  con- 
sisting of  a  number  of  quotations  from  the 

1  It  appears  that  the  bishop,  John  of  Jerusalem,  snubbed  the  young 
Spaniard  for  his  zeal  on  the  following  day,  and  Orosius  wrote  an 
extremely  immoderate  narrative  of  the  proceedings.  He  contends 
that  the  interpreter  (the  Palestinians  not  knowing  Latin)  garbled  his 
statements,  and  then  explains  that  he  knows  this  from  some  of  the 
priests  present  who,  like  Pelagius,  spoke  both  Latin  and  Greek. 


428  St.  Augustine 

writings  of  Pelagius  (many  of  which  were 
not  merely  "abbreviated,"  as  they  said, 
but  entirely  distorted),  the  condemnation 
of  Ccelestius,  and  Augustine's  letter  to 
Hilary.  Pelagius  complained  that  they 
were  instigated  by  the  pious  and  peaceful 
community  at  Bethlehem.  Eulogius  re- 
ferred the  matter  to  his  provincial  synod, 
which  met  at  Diospolis  soon  afterwards, 
and  Pelagius  was  once  more  acquitted. 
The  accusers  failed  to  appear,  one  of  them, 
Augustine  says,  being  seriously  ill.  Pel- 
agius was  confronted  with  their  libellus, 
and,  partly  by  explaining  misrepresenta- 
tions, partly  by  disavowing  the  condemned 
propositions  of  his  disciple,  partly,  it  must 
be  admitted,  by  ambiguous  answers  and 
equivocation,  obtained  a  certificate  of  or- 
thodoxy from  the  fourteen  bishops.  Shortly 
afterwards  Jerome's  monastery  was  taken 
by  storm  at  Bethlehem.  Some  of  the 
buildings  were  burned  down,  and  one  or 
two  servants  killed,  but  Jerome  and  his 
friends,  with  the  Roman  ladies  who  had 
settled  there,  found  safety  in   "a  fortified 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  429 

tower ";  though    this    outrage   was  never 
seriously  laid  to  the  charge  of  Pelagius. 

Probably  one  of  the  first  intimations 
Augustine  received  of  the  result  of  the 
synod  was  a  letter  from  Pelagius,  cover- 
ing a  sort  of  apologia,  in  which  he  apprised 
the  world  of  his  absolution  by  the  Eastern 
bishops.  Augustine  proceeded  cautiously, 
and  waited  impatiently  for  the  return  of 
Orosius.  We  have  a  fragment  of  a  sermon 
in  which  he  speaks  with  respect  and 
reserve  of  the  synod:  "perhaps  Pelagius 
was  corrected,"  he  says.  Even  when  O- 
rosius  arrived  with  a  letter  from  the  ex- 
bishops  and  a  glowing  account  of  the 
proceedings  in  the  East,  he  still  maintained 
a  certain  reserve  about  the  absolution  of 
Pelagius,  and  spoke  with  respect  of  the 
synod.  But  there  was  clearly  a  pressing 
need  of  action  in  the  Western  Church. 
The  new  ideas  were  spreading  at  Carthage 
and  Syracuse.  They  already  claimed  the 
patronage  of  important  clerics  at  Rome, 
such  as  the  priest  (afterwards  pope)  Sixtus. 
Augustine  flew  to  Carthage,  and  before  the 


43°  St.  Augustine 

end  of  the  year  the  full  power  of  the 
African  Church  was  bent  on  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  heresy.1 

Some  time  before  the  end  of  416  a  pro- 
visional synod  met  at  Carthage.  Augus- 
tine read  the  letters  from  the  East  to  the 
sixty-nine  bishops,  and  it  was  decided  to 
anathematise  Pelagius  and  Coelestius,  and 
request  the  Bishop  of  Rome  to  join  with 
them  in  the  anathema.  The  same  decisions 
were  reached  at  the  Numidian  synod  (at 
Mileve)  of  sixty-one  bishops.  Both  the 
letters  sent  to  Pope  Innocent  in  the  name 
of  these  synods  were  written  by  Augustine, 
and  in  a  third  letter  he  and  Aurelius  (of 
Carthage),  Alypius,  Evodius,  and  Possidius 
made  a  more  personal  appeal  to  the  Bishop 
of  Rome.  The  points  of  the  charge  against 
Pelagius  are  not  new,  but  there  are  one  or 
two  incidental  features  of  interest.  In  the 
first  place,  Augustine  expresses  in  the  third 

1  The  acta  of  the  synod  of  Diospolis  reached  Augustine  about  the 
end  of  416  or  the  beginning  of  417,  when  he  wrote  his  work  On  the 
Proceedings  of  Pelagius.  Forgetting  his  pious  trust  that  Pelagius  had 
been  "  corrected,"  he  now  wrote  that  he  thanked  God  his  suspicions 
were  confirmed  —  that  Pelagius  had  deceived  the  bishops. 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  431 

letter  an  apprehension  of  certain  practical 
consequences  from  the  Pelagian  ideas.  One 
is  tempted  to  think  that  the  clergy  must 
have  perceived,  with  some  anxiety,  that  the 
Pelagian  idea  gravely  threatened  their  ritual 
and  administrative  structure.  If  nature  be 
morally  self-sufficient,1  the  complex  system 
of  the  Church,  in  so  far  as  it  is  framed  for 
administering  grace  rather  than  for  worship, 
becomes  largely  superfluous.  Augustine  in- 
dicates this  fear  in  his  third  letter  (Ep.  177), 
though,  it  must  be  admitted,  it  plays  a  very 
small  part  in  the  controversy.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  appeal  to  Rome  is  an  event 
of  great  interest,  and  has  been  invested 
with  no  slight  importance.  Roman  theo- 
logians do  not  fail  to  notice  it  in  proving 
the  supremacy  of  the  Pope.  From  what  I 
have  said  in  connection  with  the  Donatist 
controversy,  it  is  clear  that  the  Africans  had 
no  notion  whatever  of  Papal  supremacy, 

1  But  it  must  be  noted  that  Professor  Mozley  and  other  students 
think  it  is  not  established  that  the  Pelagians  wholly  rejected  grace  as 
an  internal  operation  of  the  Spirit.  The  truth  is,  there  were  all 
shades  and  degrees  of  opinion  amongst  them,  and  we  have  only  the 
works  of  their  adversaries. 


432  St.  Augustine 

and  certain  episodes  which  will  be  described 
in  the  next  chapter  will  show  that  Augus- 
tine's attitude  towards  the  Roman  preten- 
sions never  changed.  But  there  were  special 
circumstances  for  the  appeal  to  Rome  in 
416,  as  Augustine  clearly  indicates  in  his 
letters;  and  the  flattering  terms  in  which 
the  Pope  is  addressed  are  entirely  out- 
weighed by  the  subsequent  action  of  the 
Council  of  Carthage,  as  we  shall  see.  In 
the  third  letter  Augustine  introduces  their 
appeal  in  these  words:  "For  we  have 
heard  that  there  are  many  at  Rome,  where 
he  lived  so  iong,  who  favour  him  for  one  or 
other  cause."  There  were,  indeed,  as  we 
shall  see  presently;  and  the  Africans  felt 
that  the  heresy  must  be  crushed  out  at 
once  in  the  whole  Latin  Church.  They 
therefore  ask  that  "the  authority  of  the 
Apostolic  See  be  added  to  their  own  modest 
statutes,"  and  that  Innocent,  whom  "the 
Lord,  by  a  special  favour  of  His  grace,  has 
placed  in  the  Apostolic  See,  and  given  such 
a  character  in  our  days  that  we  should  be 
guilty  of  negligence  if  we  failed  to  suggest 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  433 

to  thy  Holiness  what  seems  good  for  the 
Church,"  should  "apply  his  pastoral  dili- 
gence to  the  great  dangers  of  the  infirm 
members  of  Christ." 

Innocent  was  naturally  elated  at  the  hon- 
our which  this  fortunate  heresy  seemed  to 
have  secured  for  his  see.  His  three  replies 
breathe  the  dignity  of  the  sovereign  pontiff 
in  every  line.  He  takes  remarkable  pains 
to  point  out  that  they  are  only  following 
the  time-honoured  custom  of  appealing  to 
Rome,  whilst  his  delight  at  the  novelty 
floods  the  whole  letter.  He  confirms  their 
decisions  with  great  pomp  and  severity, 
pronounces  Pelagius's  book  to  be  dangerous 
and  blasphemous,  and  excommunicates  the 
two  heresiarchs.  This  was  in  January,  417; 
Augustine's  politic  letters  had  obtained  a 
quick  and  complete  victory.  The  joint 
spiritual  authority  of  Rome  and  Africa  fell 
with  a  heavy  weight  on  the  Pelagians,  and 
Augustine  trusted  to  extinguish  the  last  ele- 
ments of  obstinacy  by  his  rhetorical  labours. 
On  the  23rd  of  September  he  preached  at 

Carthage  the  celebrated  sermon  (No.  131), 
28 


434  St.  Augustine 

in  which  he  did  not  say:  "Rome  has 
spoken."  '  But  he  spoke  with  triumph  and 
gladness  of  the  condemnation  of  the  heresy, 
and  trusted  soon  to  hear  the  last  of  it. 

But  alas  for  the  slender  threads  by  which 
the  fortunes  of  dogmas  hang!  At  that  very 
moment  a  Roman  vessel  was  speeding  across 
the  sea  with  a  letter  in  which  a  new  bishop 
of  Rome  reversed  the  decision  of  his  pre- 
decessor, and  gravely  rebuked  the  zeal  of 
Augustine.  Innocent  had  died  on  the  12th 
of  March,  and  been  succeeded  by  the  Greek 
Zosimus.  Whether  or  no  Ccelestius  heard 
that  the  new  pope  had  not  a  keen  eye  for 
dogma  it  is  impossible  to  say,  but  he  soon 
quitted  the  East,  where  he  had  been  less 
fortunate  than  Pelagius,  came  to  Rome,  and 
appealed  to  the  Pope.  Zosimus  assembled 
his  clergy  in  the  basilica  of  St.  Clement  for 

1  It  is  worth  while  pointing  out  that  the  much-quoted  Roma  locuta 
est  is  not  even  a  just  representation  of  Augustine's  words.  It  should 
at  least  be  Roma  etiam  locuta  est,  indicating  that  the  force  lay  in  the 
joint  enactment  of  Africa  and  Rome.  The  full  text  is:  "Already 
the  decisions  of  two  councils  have  been  sent  to  the  Apostolic  See, 
and  the  reply  has  come  to  us.  The  cause  is  finished."  The  phrase, 
duo  concilia  missa  sunt,  is  curious,  and  has  no  parallel  in  Augustine. 
However,  even  admitting  it  as  it  stands,  it  is  something  very  different 
from  Roma  locuta  est. 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  435 

the  discussion,  but  once  more  the  ex-bishops 
failed  to  appear  in  support  of  their  indict- 
ment, and  Coelestius  averted  condemnation. 
The  Bishop  reserved  his  judgment,  with  an 
evident  leaning  towards  acquittal,  and  wrote 
at  once  to  chide  the  African  bishops  for  their 
uncharitable  haste  in  listening  to  the  ac- 
cusers. The  letter  contains  some  pompous 
remarks  about  the  dignity  of  the  Apostolic 
See,  and  concludes  with  a  delightful  and 
innocent  comment  on  Augustine's  zeal  in 
the  matter:  "  1  admonished  Coelestius  and 
all  the  clergy  who  were  present  that  these 
ensnaring  questions  and  foolish  strifes,  which 
destroy  rather  than  build  up,  proceed  from 
an  idle  curiosity." 

Before  the  African  bishops  could  recover 
from  this  shock,  Pelagius  had  also  appealed 
with  success  to  the  tolerant  Bishop  of  Rome, 
and  been  pronounced  "a  good  Catholic " 
and  of  "unquestionable  faith."  Before  he 
heard  of  the  death  of  Innocent  he  forwarded 
a  defence  and  profession  of  faith  to  Rome. 
Luckily  his  documents  found  another  judge. 
They  were  read  before  a  Roman  synod,  and, 


436  St.  Augustine 

as  Zosimus  reproachfully  assured  the  Afri- 
can bishops,  the  hearers  could  hardly  re- 
strain their  tears  when  they  reflected  that 
so  holy  and  admirable  a  man  had  been  con- 
demned. Pelagius  and  Ccelestius  were  ac- 
quitted with  honour,  Heros  and  Lazarus 
were  excommunicated  and  denounced,  and 
the  African  bishops  were  once  more  rebuked. 
Augustine  was  almost  solely  responsible 
for  the  African  condemnations,  and  to  him, 
therefore,  we  justly  look  for  an  explanation 
of  the  subsequent  proceedings.  Unfortun- 
ately, he  tells  us  little  of  his  action,  and 
nothing  of  his  feelings.  In  later  years  he 
spoke  with  quiet  forbearance  of  the  letters 
of  Zosimus,  but  his  reverence  for  the  Bishop 
of  Rome's  "  pastoral  diligence  "  was  threat- 
ened with  premature  extinction.  Prosper 
tells  us  that  the  African  bishops  held  two 
great  councils  within  the  next  six  months, 
and  that  Augustine  was  "the  soul"  of  the 
proceedings.  The  first  council  or  synod  is 
not  a  little  obscure.  Probably  Aurelius  and 
Augustine  hastily  summoned  the  nearest 
bishops  to  Carthage  and  drew  up  the  reply 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  437 

to  Zosimus.  Their  letter  has  "not  been 
preserved,"  and  thus  the  Roman  historian 
has  probably  been  spared  a  painful  task. 
But  Prosper  relates  that  two  hundred  and 
fourteen  bishops  were  present  at  the  synod, 
and  has  preserved  this  instructive  paragraph 
of  their  letter:  "We  hereby  ordain  [con- 
stituimus]  that  the  sentence  which  Innocent 
passed  on  Pelagius  and  Ccelestius  from  the 
chair  of  the  Apostle  Peter  remains  in  force 
until  they  make  a  clear  profession  "  of  the 
Augustinian  view  of  faith  and  justification. 
We  do  not  know  the  date  of  this  synod. 
However,  Zosimus  made  no  reply  until  the 
2 1st  of  March,  418,  when  he  intimated  to 
the  African  bishops  a  considerable  change 
in  his  sentiments.  They  were  quite  wrong, 
he  said,  in  supposing  that  he  had  given 
complete  credence  to  the  professions  of 
Ccelestius.  His  decision  was  still  in  re- 
serve; in  fact,  new  matter  had  recently  been 
placed  before  him,  and  he  broadly  hints 
that  he  is  likely  to  condemn  the  heretics. 
This  letter  reached  Carthage  on  the  29th 
of  April,  and  found  two  hundred  and  five 


438  St.  Augustine 

(Photius  says  two  hundred  and  twenty-six) 
bishops  assembled  there  from  all  parts  of 
Africa  for  another  council.  They  met  in 
the  basilica  of  Faustus,  under  the  presidency 
of  the  two  primates  (of  Carthage  and  Nu- 
midia),  on  the  ist  of  May.  The  letter  of 
Zosimus  seems  to  have  relieved  the  strain 
of  the  situation,  and  they  were  content  to 
formulate  nine  canons  against  the  heresy, 
and  forward  these  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome 
that  he  might  give  them  the  additional 
weight  of  his  acquiescence. 

But  it  would  be  wrong  to  suppose  that 
the  defiance  of  the  African  bishops  had  of 
itself  effected  the  conversion  of  the  Roman 
See.  Zosimus  had  announced  his  change  of 
policy  at  the  end  of  March.  At  the  end  of 
April  Honorius  issued  a  decree  in  which  the 
weight  of  the  Imperial  authority  was  cast  on 
the  side  of  the  Augustinians.  It  seems  un- 
questionable that  Augustine  and  his  col- 
leagues had  once  more  appealed  to  the 
secular  power,  in  the  failure  of  their  rhetor- 
ical armament.  The  document  is  entitled  a 
"rescript,"    and   one    ancient    manuscript 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  439 

even  says  explicitly  that  it  was  a  reply  to 
the  Carthaginian  synod.  Augustine  appar- 
ently confirms  this  when  he  says  to  Julian 
the  Pelagian,  "if  the  reply  had  been  given 
in  your  favour";  and  in  the  following  year, 
419,  Honorius  sends  a  letter  to  Aurelius 
and  Augustine  (a  remarkable  honour  for  a 
simple  bishop)  in  which  he  states  that  the 
decree  against  the  heretics  was  given  at 
their  direction.  We  are  forced  to  conclude 
that  the  African  bishops  appealed  to  the 
Emperor  when  they  received  Zosimus's  let- 
ters (virtually  acquitting  Pelagius).  Count 
Valerius  seems  to  have  been  their  instru- 
ment, and  he  was  supported  by  the  ex-vice- 
prefect  of  Rome,  Constantius,  who  had 
turned  monk  at  Rome,  and  led  the  anti- 
Pelagian  party  there.  On  the  30th  of  April 
Honorius  pronounced  sentence  of  banish- 
ment and  confiscation  on  the  heresiarchs 
and  their  followers.  Rome  was  profoundly 
distracted  by  the  controversy.  Zosimus  and 
Sixtus  (afterwards  pope)  favoured  the  Pela- 
gians, and  "the  heresy  was  rampant  in  the 
city,"  as  the  Imperial  rescript  said.    But  the 


44°  St.  Augustine 

earnestness  of  Augustine  and  the  successful 
enlistment  of  the  Imperial  interest  were 
political  considerations  of  some  gravity. 
Zosimus  was  most  certainly  aware  of  the 
intrigue  that  was  proceeding  at  Court,  and 
the  knowledge  cannot  have  been  without 
influence  on  his  letter  of  the  21st  of  March. 
When  the  rescript  appeared  and  the  letter 
of  the  second  Carthaginian  synod  arrived, 
he  summoned  Coelestius  to  appear  once 
more  before  him  and  his  clergy.  The  here- 
tic did  not  like  the  nature  of  the  new  docu- 
ments in  the  case,  and  fled  to  the  East.  He 
and  Pelagius  were  then  condemned  and  ex- 
communicated, and  Zosimus  issued  a  circu- 
lar letter  (tractatoria)  in  which  he  demanded 
the  submission  of  the  Italian  bishops  under 
pain  of  deprivation  of  their  sees.  The  exe- 
cution of  the  sentence  was  entrusted  to  the 
Imperial  forces,  and  thus  the  humanists  of 
the  fifth  century  were  at  length  definitively 
cast  out  of  the  Church  in  the  Western 
Empire. 

In  the  meantime  Augustine  maintained  a 
vigilant  opposition  to  the  heretical    ideas 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  441 

wherever  they  appeared.  He  wrote  a  long 
letter  to  Paulinus  of  Nola,  the  early  friend 
of  Pelagius,  urging  him  to  confirm  the  faith 
of  some  of  his  wavering  clerics.  From  this 
letter  it  appears  that  there  were  ultra- 
Pelagians  who  granted  the  child  a  power 
of  choice  even  before  it  left  the  womb. 
He  wrote  to  Sixtus,  artfully  congratulating 
him  on  his  conversion.  But  a  more  inter- 
esting outcrop  of  the  heresy  claimed  his 
attention  about  the  end  of  417.  We  have 
seen  how  the  young  Roman  heiress,  Deme- 
trias,  took  the  veil  of  virginity  in  414,  and 
Pelagius  imitated  the  group  of  distinguished 
clerics  (Augustine,  Jerome,  Innocent,  etc.) 
who  sent  her  letters,  or  treatises,  of  encour- 
agement. Pelagius  was  invited  to  do  so  by 
her  mother,  Juliana,1  and  he  was  not  unwil- 
ling to  enlarge  upon  so  striking  a  proof  of 

1  This  he  expressly  says  in  his  letter,  yet  all  the  hagiographers  re- 
buke him  for  his  gratuitous  and  insidious  interference.  Cardinal 
Rauscher  talks  of  his  "  poisoned  cup,"  and  represents  the  mother, 
Juliana,  as  "  more  distressed  at  this  spiritual  peril  of  her  daughter  than 
ever  mother  was  over  an  attempt  on  the  bodily  life  of  her  child." 
The  truth  is  that  Augustine  finds  Juliana  rather  hard  to  convince  that 
the  book  is  heretical;  and  poor  Jerome  had  again  to  suffer  under  the 
allegation  of  authorship  for  several  centuries,  whilst  the  book  circu- 
lated admiringly  in  the  Church  under  his  own  name. 


442  St.  Augustine 

the  power  and  dignity  of  human  nature. 
He  sent  her  an  admirable  treatise  of  spiritual 
direction,  encouraging  her  with  an  introduc- 
tory laudation  of  "nature."  He  reminds 
her  that  God  is  the  author  of  our  nature  and 
our  will,  extols  the  virtue  of  pre-Christian 
philosophers  and  prophets,  and  describes 
how  much  more  is  required  of  those  who 
live  under  the  "grace  of  Christ."  It  is  evi- 
dent, however,  that  he  means  by  grace 
nothing  more  than  the  external  advantages 
—  the  gospel,  the  Divine  example,  etc. —  of 
the  Incarnation.  The  letter  was  greatly  ap- 
preciated and  much  copied,  until  a  copy  fell 
at  length  under  Augustine's  keen  eye.  It 
had  not  the  name  of  the  writer,  but  Augus- 
tine probably  suspected  its  authorship,  and 
wrote  to  ask  the  name  of  Juliana,  and  warn 
her  with  extreme  anxiety  against  the  errors 
of  the  work.  Juliana  seems  to  have  been 
none  too  well  disposed  for  his  zealous  inter- 
ference, and  he  takes  great  pains  to  teach 
her  the  evils  of  Pelagianism.  But  the  most 
virulent  passage  he  has  found  in  the  work 
is,  he  explains,  the  observation  that  "thy 


Augustine  and  Pelagius         443 

beauty  of  body  and  thy  wealth  may  be  ac- 
counted as  the  gift  of  others,  but  spiritual 
wealth  no  one  can  give  thee  but  thyself." 

About  the  same  time  other  friends  of  his, 
whose  acquaintance  we  have  made,  were 
nearly  seduced  by  the  "  dog  from  Albion." 
Albina  and  Pinianus  and  Melania,  who  had 
by  that  time  settled  in  Palestine,  met  Pe- 
lagius and  attempted  to  restore  him  to 
orthodoxy.  As  usual,  the  persuasive  monk 
turned  their  criticism  into  admiration,  and 
they  then  wrote  to  ask  Augustine's  view  of 
the  matter.  He  replied  by  the  composition 
of  a  fresh  work  on  the  old  lines,  having  the 
title,  Of  the  Grace  of  Christ  and  Original 
Sin,  in  which  he  again  expounded  his 
theory  and  proved  the  discrepancy  of  the 
Pelagian  teaching. 

But  a  new  champion  of  the  Pelagian 
cause,  in  a  slightly  modified  form,  appeared 
in  the  West.  The  exaggerated  ideas  of 
original  sin  and  predestination  put  forward 
by  Augustine  provoked  a  wide  and  sincere 
revolt,  which  was  not  entirely  quelled  for 
more  than  a  century.    When  the  tractatoria 


444  St.  Augustine 

of  Zosimus  announced  his  change  of  views, 
or  of  policy,  to  the  Italian  bishops  in  the 
summer  of  418,  no  less  than  eighteen  of 
them  refused  to  submit,  in  spite  of  the  very 
material  argument  of  the  imperial  spears  on 
which  it  chiefly  relied.  They  were  accord- 
ingly driven  from  their  sees.  The  leader  of 
them,  Julian,  Bishop  of  Eclanum  in  Apulia, 
was  the  son  of  a  friend  of  Augustine's, 
Memorius,  and  it  was  with  some  regret 
that  Augustine  found  it  necessary  to  exert 
his  whole  power  against  him.  Julian  con- 
temptuously described  the  orthodox  theory 
of  original  sin  as  "a  mere  popular  mur- 
mur," and  declared  it  had  been  thrust  on 
the  Church  by  "a  rascally  conspiracy." 
He  regarded  Augustine's  system  as  a  re- 
vival of  Manicheism,  and  he  and  his  friends 
familiarly  spoke  of  the  orthodox  as  "the 
Manicheans."  He  held  that  Augustine's 
view  of  the  Creation  and  fall  was  incon- 
sistent with  the  Divine  power  and  wisdom, 
that  he  cast  dishonour  on  marriage,  and 
that  his  theory  of  grace  left  no  room  for  free 
will  and  personal  responsibility.    He  wrote 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  445 

two  letters  in  defence  of  his  action:  one  to 
the  Bishop  of  Rome,  in  which  he  severely 
censured  Zosimus  for  suddenly  abandoning 
the  Roman  position  under  the  pressure  of 
the  Africans,  instead  of  calling  a  general 
council,  and  denounced  the  appeal  to 
force;  and  a  second  to  the  Bishop  of  Thes- 
salonica,  in  which  he  pointed  out  the  moral 
and  religious  consequences  of  the  Augus- 
tinian  teaching.  These  letters  were  for- 
warded to  Augustine  by  Boniface,  who  had 
succeeded  Zosimus  in  the  Roman  See,  and 
he  answered  them  in  his  work  Against  the 
Two  Letters  of  the  Pelagians.  A  little  later, 
when  Count  Valerius  told  him  that  the 
Pelagians  made  much  of  his  apparent  de- 
preciation of  marriage,  he  wrote  a  book  On 
Marriage  and  Concupiscence,  in  which  he 
developed  the  views  I  have  already  de- 
scribed. His  controversy  with  Julian  and 
the  Italians  was  long  and  monotonous.  In 
42 1  he  wrote  a  work  in  four  books,  Against 
Julian,  and  we  have  also  several  books  of  a 
large,  unfinished  work  against  the  same 
writer,  on  which  he  was  engaged  in  his  last 


446  St.  Augustine 

years.  The  heresy  long  resisted  both  eccle- 
siastical and  imperial  pressure  in  Italy  and 
Gaul.  We  find  traces  of  it  until  about  the 
end  of  the  fifth  century.  Pelagius  and 
Ccelestius  had  retired  to  the  East,  where 
they  enjoyed  a  greater^  freedom  until  after 
the  death  of  their  great  adversary.  But 
in  431  the  Eastern  Church  embraced  the 
Augustinian  ideas  at  Ephesus,  and  the 
champions  of  human  nature  sank  into  ob- 
scurity. Pelagius  is  said  to  have  died  in  a 
small  town  of  Palestine  at  an  advanced  age, 
and  Ccelestius  disappears  from  the  chroni- 
cles. Julian  is  said  to  have  opened  a  school 
in  an  obscure  Sicilian  town,  and  died  there 
in  454. 

In  the  meantime  the  ethical  protest 
against  the  Augustinian  ideas  assumed  the 
milder  form  which  is  known  as  semi-Pela- 
gianism.  Human  nature  was  not  disposed 
to  surrender  its  dignity  without  a  struggle. 
There  is  an  ecclesiastical  tradition  that  all 
heresy  is  born  of  pride  and  flourishes  only 
in  an  atmosphere  of  disorderly  feeling. 
One  might  have  expected  even  the  bold- 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  447 

ness  of  a  theologian  to  shrink  from  applying 
this  maxim  to  the  Pelegian  heresy,  but  we 
have  seen  that  neither  historical  fact  nor 
intrinsic  probability  has  deterred  him  from 
making  the  attempt.  However,  semi-Pela- 
gianism,  like  the  more  pronounced  heresy, 
took  root  in  a  soil  of  exceptional  purity. 
A  monk  named  Cassian,  who  had  learned 
sanctity  in  the  schools  of  Bethlehem  and 
Egypt,  and  had  then  founded  two  monas- 
teries at  Marseilles,  began  to  expound  a 
compromise  between  the  certainly  anti- 
scriptural  opinions  of  Pelagius  and  what 
M.  Nourisson  ventures  to  call  the  "inhu- 
man and  revolting  "  doctrine  of  Augustine. 
He  acknowledged  that  we  have  all  died  by 
the  death  of  Adam  and  lived  by  the  resur- 
rection of  Christ,  but  he  protested  against- 
the  idea  of  a  total  corruption  of  human 
nature  and  a  predestination  to  eternal  life 
or  death  without  regard  to  individual  merit; 
he  also  held  that  grace  was  not  usually 
granted  until  it  had  been  merited  by  a  mo- 
tion of  good  will,  that  it  might  be  lost,  and 
that  perseverance  in  grace  depended  on  the 


448  St.  Augustine 

will.  Another  compromise  was  attempted 
by  the  monks  of  Adrumetum,  with  whom  I 
will  deal  later.  Augustine  was  not  the 
kind  of  man  to  allow  purely  rational  con- 
siderations to  interfere  with  the  course  of 
his  theological  reasoning.  He  sternly  de- 
nounced the  compromise  in  his  works,  On 
the  Predestination  of  the  Saints  and  On  the 
Gift  of  Perseverance.  The  question  of  per- 
severance had  not  been  much  discussed  in 
the  earlier  stages  of  the  struggle,  and  the 
compromise  of  Cassian  only  served  to  drive 
Augustine  to  the  bitterest  consequences  of 
his  principles.  His  ideas  on  this  point  are 
too  well  known  for  me  to  enlarge  on  them. 
The  will  is  a  mere  automaton,  worked 
solely  by  grace.  The  first  movement  must 
come  from  grace  no  less  surely  than  the 
last;  we  cannot  merit  that  indispensable 
factor  in  the  moral  life,  nor  can  we  retain  it 
to  the  end  by  our  human  efforts.  Absolutely 
without  regard  to  the  merit  of  the  indi- 
vidual (in  the  way  of  co-operation  or  re- 
jection) God  has  decreed  His  distribution  of 
grace,  on  which  eternal  life  or  eternal  dam- 


Augustine  and  Pelagius  449 

nation  morally  depends,  as  Cassian  saw. 
The  Christians  of  Gaul  long  resisted  these 
harsh  opinions,  but  by  the  middle  of  the 
sixth  century  even  their  modified  vindica- 
tion of  human  nature  had  entirely  ceased.1 

1  Gibbon  has  said  that  "the  real  difference  between  him  [Augus- 
tine] and  Calvin  was  invisible  even  to  a  theological  microscope."  He 
should  have  said  "  except  to  a  theological  microscope."  1  was  once 
the  happy  possessor  of  such  an  instrument,  and  I  perceived  the  differ- 
ence. Perhaps  I  was  wrong  in  saying  that  Augustine's  logical  con- 
secutiveness  was  unhampered  by  any  merely  humanist  feeling.  It  was 
in  this  he  differed  from  Calvin,  who  calmly  handed  over  millions  of 
mortals  to  a  positive  and  deliberately  decreed  damnation,  whilst  Au- 
gustine was  reluctantly  forced  to  leave  their  damnation  as  an  unwel- 
come consequence  of  his  views — the  reprobatio  negativa  of  certain 
Roman  theologians;  and  whilst  Calvin  ruthlessly  fulminated  the 
automatism  of  the  will,  Augustine  made  inconsistent  efforts  to  recon- 
cile with  his  principles  the  granting  of  some  negative  dignity  to  it. 


Chapter  XVI 

Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years 

COR  the  later  years  of  Augustine's  career 
*  we  have  only  to  narrate  the  incidents 
of  unusual  interest  which  distracted  him 
from  the  work  we  have  already  described. 
His  correspondence  and  his  judicial  work 
increased  with  the  advance  of  age  and  the 
progress  of  his  reputation  through  the  Ro- 
man world.  On  him  chiefly  devolved  the 
task  of  watching  the  restless  movements 
of  the  proscribed  heretics,  schismatics,  and 
pagans;  and  he  had  projected  vast  com- 
mentaries on  Scripture,  which  he  slowly 
accomplished  between  415  and  425.  So 
untiring,  indeed,  was  his  literary  activity, 
that  we  shall  find  him  calmly  toiling  at  a 
huge  anti-Pelagian  work  whilst  the  fierce 
Vandals  are  pressing  against  the  walls  of 

Hippo,  and  the  great  church  he  had  built  up 

450 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     451 

in  Africa  lies  in  ruins  about  him.  It  is  this 
continuous  labour  that  chiefly  invites  our 
astonishment  and  admiration  in  Augustine's 
later  years.  However,  we  have  already 
seen  the  character  of  the  work  he  was 
normally  engaged  upon,  and  it  only  re- 
mains to  give  a  few  illustrations  of  the 
exceptional  occupations  which  reveal  his 
person  to  us  in  so  many  different  lights 
after  the  great  conference  of  418. 

Immediately  after  the  conference  at  which 
Augustine  and  his  colleagues  so  courte- 
ously corrected  the  errors  of  the  Bishop  of 
Rome,  a  second  controversy  arose,  of  less 
importance  in  itself,  but  so  irritating  as  to 
destroy  the  last  particle  of  an  inclination  to 
submit  to  the  Roman  pretensions.  The  ma- 
jority of  the  bishops  had  returned  to  their 
sees,  and  Aurelius,  Augustine,  and  fourteen 
other  bishops  were  despatching  the  detailed 
business  of  the  synod,  when  a  fresh  depu- 
tation from  Rome  appeared.  Some  time 
previously,  one  of  Augustine's  bishop-pu- 
pils, Urbanus  of  Sicca,  had  deposed  and 
excommunicated  one  of  the  clergy  at  that 


452  St.  Augustine 

town  for  improper  and  scandalous  conduct. 
This  Apiarius  had  appealed  to  Rome;  and 
the  Bishop  of  Rome,  ever  ready  to  make 
precedents  of  interference  in  foreign  pro- 
vinces, had  persuaded  himself  that  the 
priest  had  been  injured.  He  had  there- 
fore sent  Faustinus,  Bishop  of  Potentina, 
with  a  couple  of  Roman  priests,  to  demand 
the  reinstatement  of  Apiarius.  Faustinus 
was  a  pompous  and  fussy  Italian  with  large 
ideas  of  Roman  supremacy,  as  will  appear, 
and  the  Africans  were  little  reconciled  to 
the  substance  of  his  demand  by  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  urged  it.  Aurelius  at  once 
summoned  the  neighbouring  bishops  to 
meet  the  legate.  When  Faustinus  was  po- 
litely asked  to  state  the  basis  of  the  pope's 
claim  to  interfere,  he  appealed  to  two 
canons  of  the  Nicene  Council  which  pro- 
vided for  recourse  to  Rome.  The  Afri- 
can Fathers  at  once  referred  to  their  copies 
of  the  Nicene  canons  (brought  from  the 
Council  by  their  own  Bishop  of  Carthage), 
and  were  astonished  to  find  no  trace  of  the 
two  canons  Faustinus  had  mentioned  and 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     453 

Zosimus  had  quoted  at  length.1  However, 
they  promised  to  admit  the  new  canons 
until  the  matter  could  be  properly  investi- 
gated, and  to  reopen  the  question  of  Apia- 
rius.  But  they  also  enacted  that  in  future 
no  priest  or  deacon  who  appealed  to  a 
church  beyond  the  sea  against  his  bishop 
would  be  admitted  to  communion  in  Africa. 
The  rule  was  that  a  priest  should  appeal 
from  his  bishop  to  the  primate  of  his  pro- 
vince, and  from  him  to  a  provincial  or  gen- 
eral council. 

It  appears  that  Augustine  was  then  sent 
with  other  bishops  to  make  an  inquiry  into 
the  scandal.  His  Catholic  biographers  gen- 
erally observe  with  some  complacency  that 
in  418  he  was  delegated  by  Zosimus  to 
hold  an  inquiry  at  Caesarea  into  some  un- 
known business.  Cardinal  Von  Rauscher, 
who  gives  the  Apiarius  incident  nearly  in 
full   (though    in    phrases    which    are    not 

1  I  may  state  at  once  that  the  canons  in  question  were  added  at  the 
subsequent  Council  of  Sardica.  Hefele  would  have  them  to  be  of 
equal  importance,  but  the  course  of  our  narrative  will  show  that  the 
Africans  thought  otherwise.  Indeed,  it  is  very  clear  from  the  records 
that  they  entertained  very  unflattering  suspicions  about  the  Romans 
and  their  canons  from  the  beginning. 


454  St.  Augustine 

"offensive  to  pious  ears"),  very  justly  ob- 
serves that  it  must  have  been  the  com- 
mission of  Aurelius  to  settle  the  Apiarius 
question  which  took  him  to  Cassarea  (in 
Mauretania)  in  418.  He  himself  says  (Ep. 
190)  that  it  was  "a  necessity  imposed  by 
Zosimus,"  and  Possidius  says  "the  letters 
of  Zosimus  had  compelled  him  "  to  go 
thither.  These  observations  are  quite  con- 
sonant with  the  idea  that  he  went  at  the 
request  of  Aurelius,  arising  out  of  the 
letters  of  Zosimus;  and  there  is  no  clear 
trace  of  other  matters  in  dispute  between 
Zosimus  and  the  Africans.  Augustine  only 
mentions  incidentally  the  synod  he  held  at 
Caesarea,  but  he  tells  of  two  other  adven- 
tures which  illustrate  his  wonderful  alert- 
ness and  energy.  The  former  Donatist 
bishop  of  Caesarea,  a  very  capable  man  of 
the  name  of  Emeritus,  still  rebelled  against 
the  Church  (and  the  Law),  and  was  pro- 
bably hiding  in  the  neighbourhood.  When 
he  heard  of  Augustine's  arrival,  he  came 
into  the  town.  The  expectation  of  one  of 
those  public  disputes  which  had  so  much 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     455 

charm  for  the  Africans  at  once'  animated 
the  whole  town.  Augustine  was  informed 
of  the  appearance  of  Emeritus,  and  instantly 
buckled  on  his  spurs.  He  met  Emeritus  in 
the  street,  and  after  a  few  friendly  passages 
invited  him  to  the  Church  (the  poor  man's 
own  basilica).  Emeritus  consented,  but 
when  Augustine  ascended  the  steps  of  the 
apse  and  began  to  interrogate  him,  he  sul- 
lenly refused  to  debate,  and  the  crowded 
congregation  had  to  be  content  with  a 
discourse  from  Augustine. 

The  other  incident  Augustine  tells  recalls 
his  success  in  crushing  the  martyr-feasts  at 
Hippo.  At  Cassarea  there  was  a  peculiar 
tradition,  going  back  far  into  the  past  his- 
tory of  the  place,  of  holding  an  annual 
faction-fight.  Even  families  were  divided 
in  the  encounters,  and  for  several  days  the 
citizens  stoned  and  fought  each  other  with 
fatal  results.  The  clergy  had  been  un- 
able to  induce  the  people  to  abandon  this 
cherished  custom  of  the  town,  and,  as  the 
festival  occurred  during  Augustine's  visit, 
he  was   invited  to  preach  against  it.     He 


456  St.  Augustine 

won  a  signal  oratorical  triumph.  Before 
his  sermon  had  proceeded  far,  the  murmurs 
were  changed  into  applause,  but  he  con- 
tinued with  increased  fervour  until  he  saw 
the  whole  congregation  in  tears.  The 
caterva,  as  the  traditional  fight  was  called, 
was  never  again  held  at  Cassarea. 

Augustine  himself  has  led  us  to  this  di- 
gression, and  we  may  now  return  with  him 
to  the  question  of  Apiarius.  The  charges 
seem  to  have  been  proved,  but  the  priest 
asked  forgiveness,  and  Urbanus  was  in- 
duced to  restore  his  priestly  office,  and 
allow  him  to  exercise  it  in  a  small  town  or 
village  of  his  par&cia.  At  what  date  this 
was  done  we  cannot  say,  but  we  find  Faus- 
tinus  and  the  two  priests  still  at  Carthage 
when  Zosimus  died,  on  the  26th  of  De- 
cember. His  successor,  Boniface,  con- 
firmed the  commission  to  the  Italian  bishop, 
and  at  length,  on  the  25th  of  May,  419, 
a  general  synod  of  the  African  bishops 
(to  the  number  of  two  hundred  and  seven- 
teen) was  held  at  Carthage.  The  ill-chosen 
legate  somewhat  exasperated  the  bishops 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     457 

by  his  pompous  claims  of  compliance  with 
the  Roman  demand  and  resentment  of  their 
scepticism  about  the  canons,  but  in  the 
end  it  was  decided  to  procure  authentic 
copies  of  the  Nicene  canons  from  the 
bishops  of  Alexandria,  Antioch,  and  Con- 
stantinople, and  to  regard  the  two  Sardican 
canons  as  valid  in  the  meantime.  In  their 
letter  to  Boniface  they  apprise  him  of  the 
conclusions  arrived  at  "in  charity,  indeed, 
but  not  without  laborious  altercation."  If 
these  canons  had  been  found  in  their  copies, 
they  say,  they  "would  have  been  spared 
certain  intolerable  things  they  do  not  care 
to  mention";  but  they  "trust  they  will 
not  have  to  endure  that  pompousness  any 
longer."1 

When  Atticus,  Bishop  of  Constantinople, 
and  Cyril,  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  sent  au- 
thentic copies  of  the  Nicene  canons,  and 

1  See  this  and  the  subsequent  letter  to  Coelestine  in  Labbe's  Col- 
lectio  Conciliorum,  ad  ann.  419  and  424.  Father  Hefele  does  not 
quite  justly  translate  the  letters  in  his  History  of  the  Councils  (Eng- 
lish translation).  For  instance,  he  makes  them  say  Urbanus  had  "  com- 
plied with  the  Pope's  request  "  before  the  Council.  The  bishops  say 
that  "  Urbanus  had  corrected  what  needed  correction,"  but  they  do 
not  gratify  Boniface  with  the  expression  inserted  by  Hefele. 


458  St.  Augustine 

there  was  still  no  trace  of  the  two  quoted 
by  Zosimus,  the  feeling  of  the  African 
bishops  must  have  been  strongly  aroused 
against  Rome.  Augustine  is  provokingly 
silent  on  the  whole  question  and  the  issues 
it  involved.  However,  Apiarius  once  more 
fell  into  disgrace  a  few  years  later,  and  the 
controversy  was  reopened.  Disgraceful 
conduct  was  proved  against  the  priest  by 
his  new  congregation,  and  he  was  again 
excommunicated.  He  fled  to  Rome,  the 
bishop  — now  Coelestine  I.— received  him 
to  communion  (so  indecent  was  the  haste 
to  assert  the  prerogatives  of  the  Roman 
See),  and  the  Africans  were  insulted  by  the 
same  Faustinus  being  sent  to  demand  his 
reinstatement.  The  African  bishops  hast- 
ened to  Carthage,  where  they  held  a  general 
synod  in  424.  The  proceedings  are  not 
recorded,  or  the  records  have  not  been  pre- 
served, but  the  bishops  admit  in  their  letter 
to  Coelestine  that  "  there  were  stormy  sit- 
tings for  three  days."  Faustinus  demanded 
compliance  with  Coelestine's  orders  more 
arrogantly  than  ever,  and  the  African  bish- 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     459 

ops,  fortified  by  their  new  copies  of  the 
canons,  warmly  resented  the  Italian  inter- 
vention. At  length  Apiarius  reduced  Faus- 
tinus  to  silence  by  confessing  his  guilt  of 
all  the  crimes  alleged,  and  the  Roman  party 
retired  from  the  struggle.  But  the  Africans 
followed  up  the  retreat  of  the  legate  with  a 
letter1  which  must  have  made  Ccelestine 
weep  for  the  loss  of  Africa.  They  complain 
that  Faustinus 

''insulted  the  whole  assembly,  pretending  to  assert 
certain  privileges  of  the  Roman  Church,"  and  in  con- 
clusion they  "earnestly  beg  that  in  future  you  will 
not  too  readily  lend  your  ears  to  those  who  come  to 
you  from  here,  nor  receive  into  communion  those 
whom  we  have  excommunicated;  for  thy  Vener- 
ableness  will  easily  find  that  this  has  already  been 
enjoined  by  the  Council  of  Nicaea.  .  .  .  The  Fath- 
ers did  not  detract  from  the  dignity  of  the  African 
Church  by  any  of  their  enactments.  They  most 
prudently  and  justly  provided  that  all  affairs  should 
be  disposed  of  in  the  places  where  they  arise;  nor 
did  they  think  that  any  province  would  be  refused 
that  grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit  whereby  the  priests  of 
Christ  may  prudently  discern  and  hold  fast  to  equity; 
especially  as  any  priest  is  free  to  appeal  to  a  pro- 
vincial, or  even  a  general  council,  if  he  be  dissatisfied 
with  a  judgment.     Unless,  indeed,  there  is  any  one 

1  See  in  Labbe'  (not  Hefele),  loc.  cit. 


460  St.  Augustine 

who  can  think  our  God  will  give  His  inspiration  of 
justice  to  one  single  person  [unicui/ibet],  and  deny 
it  to  so  many  priests  assembled  in  council."  They 
go  on  to  remind  him  that  ''the  judgment  of  a 
transmarine  see"  is  hardly  likely  to  be  sound,  see- 
ing the  distance  and  the  difficulty  of  obtaining 
witnesses;  and  they  "do  not  find  it  laid  down  in 
any  synod  of  the  Fathers  "  that  the  Roman  bishop 
has  a  right  to  send  legates  into  their  provinces. 
Cyril  and  Atticus  have  confirmed  their  suspicion  that 
the  two  canons  were  not  genuine,  and  they  beg  he 
will  send  no  more  legates  "lest  we  should  seem 
to  introduce  the  empty  pride  of  the  world  into  the 
humble  Church  of  Christ." 

As  to  Faustinus,  they  could  not  tolerate 
him  in  Africa  much  longer.  So  much  for 
the  recognition  of  Roman  prestige  in  Africa 
in  the  fifth  century. 

Augustine  is,  as  1  said,  singularly  silent 
about  the  whole  episode.  We  cannot  even 
trace  his  influence  in  the  great  council  of 
424.  However,  in  the  meantime  an  in- 
cident occurred  which  brought  him  into 
communication  with  the  Bishop  of  Rome. 
On  the  outskirts  of  his  paroecia,  some  forty 
miles  from  Hippo,  was  the  small  town  of 
Fussala,  where  he  had  established  a  mis- 
sion.    A  retired  official  had  built  a  chapel 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     461 

there  over  a  handful  of  soil  which  had  been 
brought  from  Palestine,  and  was  held  in 
great  veneration.  The  district  was  almost 
entirely  Donatistic,  and  the  earlier  priests 
whom  Augustine  had  stationed  there  had 
been  blinded,  maimed,  and  variously  ill- 
used  by  the  fierce  Circumcellions.  As  the 
schism  yielded,  Augustine  had  converted 
Fussala  into  a  separate  bishopric,  and  in 
418  he  was  summoned  thither  to  find  an 
occupant  for  the  see.  He  had  chosen  a 
worthy  priest  of  his  own  community,  and 
had  invited  the  primate  of  the  province 
to  lay  hands  on  him,  when  the  candidate 
withdrew  at  the  last  moment.  Not  liking 
to  give  the  primate  a  fruitless  journey 
(so  he  said  afterwards),  Augustine  cast 
about  for  a  suitable  candidate  amongst  the 
clerics  who  accompanied  him.  He  selected  a 
young  man  named  Antony,  a  lector  from  his 
own  episcopal  seminary,  who  had  been  un- 
der his  charge  "from  his  earliest  boyhood." 
Bishop  Antony  developed  propensities 
which  had  escaped  the  eye  of  Augustine. 
In    422    his    people    rebelled    against   his 


462  St.  Augustine 


& 


authority,  and  demanded  his  removal.  He 
was  acquitted  by  the  synod  which  Augus- 
tine convoked  of  the  grosser  charges  brought 
against  him,  but  the  accusation  of  covet- 
ousness  and  corruption  was  sustained.  Au- 
gustine proposed  to  leave  him  in  office 
with  diminished  authority,  but  the  people 
refused  to  retain  him  in  any  capacity,  and 
he  was  forced  to  retire. 

However,  Antony  persuaded  the  Numid- 
ian  primate  that  he  had  been  wronged,  and 
the  primate — so  Augustine  says  in  his  letter 
to  Ccelestine  —  advised  him  to  appeal  to 
Rome.  Pope  Boniface,  naturally  more  leni- 
ent to  those  who  supported  the  Roman 
policy  by  appealing,  decided  that  Antony 
was  innocent  and  must  be  reinstated  "if 
his  depositions  were  correct."  He  sent 
legates  to  Fussala  to  enforce  his  decision, 
but  died  shortly  afterwards  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Ccelestine.  The  Fussalenses  at 
once  appealed  to  Coelestine,  casting  the 
blame  of  the  incident  on  Augustine,  on  ac- 
count of  his  hasty  choice  in  418.  But  they 
do  not  seem  to  have  gained  much,  and 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     463 

rumours  came  to  Hippo  that  the  Roman 
commissioners  were  about  to  enforce  the 
Pope's  decision  by  the  use  of  the  imperial 
forces.  Augustine  then  wrote  himself  to 
Ccelestine,  and  seems  to  have  succeeded  in 
inducing  him  to  abandon  the  matter.  The 
letter  (Ep.  209)  cannot  be  quoted  as  evinc- 
ing any  disposition  on  Augustine's  part  to 
accept  the  Roman  claims.  It  is  by  no 
means  defiant  in  tone,  yet  it  contains  a 
threat  to  resign  his  own  charge  if  Ccelestine 
insists  on  the  reinstatement  of  Antony,  and 
it  seems  to  discover  no  other  feature  of  au- 
thority in  the  Roman  interference  beyond 
the  threatened  use  of  the  imperial  forces. 
Either  the  letter  gained  its  object,  or  the 
African  triumph  of  the  following  year  (424) 
forbade  any  attempt  to  enforce  the  support 
of  Antony  from  Rome. 

Another  incident  of  the  year  423,  which 
we  learn  from  Augustine's  letters,  was  a 
rebellion  in  the  nunnery  which  adjoined  his 
house.  Augustine's  sister  had  been  superi- 
oress of  this  convent  until  her  death  (some 
years  previously),  and  her  successor  had 


464  St.  Augustine 


& 


directed  the  community  in  peace  until  the 
year  423.  Then  she  seems  to  have  changed 
the  chaplain  (propositus)  of  the  house,  and 
her  spiritual  daughters  rebelled.  Augustine 
complains  (Ep.  211)  that  the  noise  of  their 
quarrels  was  audible  in  his  own  house. 
They  sent  for  him  to  come  and  settle  the 
dispute,  but  he  refused  to  do  so.  Had  he 
done  so,  this  familiar  and  trifling  episode  of 
an  intrigue  and  quarrel  in  a  nunnery  would 
not  occupy  us  in  the  twentieth  century. 
As  it  was,  he  wrote  a  letter,  which  we  still 
have,  chiding  them  for  the  scandal.  But 
the  chief  interest  of  the  event  is  that  it  occa- 
sioned the  writing  of  the  famous  Rule  of  St. 
Augustine.  After  a  few  reproving  words, 
Augustine  goes  on  to  frame  a  rule  of  life  for 
the  nuns,  and  this  has  been  taken  (with  a 
few  masculine  modifications)  as  the  founda- 
tion of  more  than  one  monastic  rule.  It 
expresses  the  moderate  asceticism  which 
we  have  already  noticed  in  Augustine.  For 
instance,  whereas  Jerome  urges  "the  adult 
virgin  "  to  shun  the  bath  altogether,  Augus- 
tine not  only  permits,  but  recommends,  the 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     465 

use  of  the  bath  "about  once  a  month  ";  and 
the  nuns  must  not  go  to  the  baths  in  less 
than  a  company  of  three.  If  there  was  one 
purely  human  virtue  that  Augustine  recog- 
nised it  was  cleanliness.  His  ideal  was 
rather  one  of  sobriety  and  plainness  of  life 
for  a  moral  purpose  than  of  the  infliction  of 
actual  suffering. 

Augustine  exhibited  a  notable  credulity 
from  almost  the  beginning  of  his  ecclesiasti- 
cal career,  as  we  have  seen,  and  there  are 
events  of  the  year  424  or  425  which  seem  to 
prove  that  it  grew  with  his  advancing  age. 
Some  years  before  that  date  the  body  of 
St.  Stephen  is  said  to  have  been  discovered 
at  Jerusalem.  With  the  dramatic  discovery 
itself — owing  to  a  nocturnal  communication 
from  no  less  interesting  a  spirit  than  that  of 
Gamaliel — we  have  no  concern.  But  some- 
where about  the  year  424  a  portion  of  the 
discovered  body  was  brought  to  Hippo,  and 
was  enshrined  with  great  honour  in  a  small 
chapel  opening  into  the  chief  basilica.1    The 

1  I  have  already  given  Augustine's  rebuke  to  those  who  questioned 

the  authenticity  of  the  relics:  "  Let  no  one  dispute:  the  will  of  God 

requires  faith,  not  questions." 
30 


466  St.  Augustine 

opposition  to  the  "cult  of  dead  men"  was 
not  the  only  error  of  his  youth  which  Augus- 
tine had  outlived.  He  had  likewise  sur- 
rendered the  idea  that  "  miracles  were  no 
longer  performed,"  as  well  as  his  early 
weakness  for  the  production  of  evidence. 
He  eagerly  received  the  relics  into  his 
church,  and  still  more  eagerly  welcomed 
the  miracles  which  now  began  to  occur 
daily.  In  two  years  he  drew  up  the  libelli 
of  no  less  than  seventy  miracles  that  were 
wrought  at  Hippo.  Most  of  these  were,  of 
course,  cases  of  diabolical  possession,  a  dis- 
ease on  which  we  no  longer  have  the  op- 
portunity to  experiment.  But  there  were 
three  cases  of  raising  the  dead  to  life,  which 
might  disconcert  the  sceptic  if  Augustine 
had  not  written  about  that  time  a  chapter 
on  these  miracles  in  his  City  of  God  (Book 
xxii.).  He  there  describes  a  case  of  miracu- 
lous resurrection.  A  woman  was  weeping 
in  distraction  over  her  dying  child,  when 
the  thought  of  the  relics  occurred  to  her. 
The  child  died  (so  she  and  Augustine  be- 
lieve), and  she  at  once  ran  off  to  church 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     467 

with    the    body,   and  had    it  restored   to 
life. 

But  another  miracle  occurred  about  the 
time  we  are  dealing  with  which  has  many 
features  of  interest.  With  the  multiplica- 
tion of  miraculous  shrines  there  appeared  a 
number  of  cosmopolitan  patients  who  often 
conveyed  their  infirmities  from  country  to 
country  for  a  number  of  years.  Two  of 
these  came  to  Hippo,  and  occasioned  some 
very  lively  scenes  in  the  basilica.  The  story 
told  by  the  youth  (his  companion  was  his 
sister)  was  that  they  had  lived  at  Cassarea  in 
Cappadocia  (a  thousand  miles  or  so  away), 
where  their  father  had  died,  leaving  a  widow 
and  ten  children.  The  eldest  son  insulted 
his  mother  one  day,  and  she  at  once  re- 
paired—"in  one  of  those  fits  of  temper 
which  are  so  familiar  to  that  sex,"  says  Au- 
gustine—to the  baptismal  font  in  the  basilica 
to  curse  him  with  due  form  and  legality. 
She  met  a  demon  on  the  way,  who  per- 
suaded her  to  include  the  other  nine  in  her 
malediction,  because  they  had  not  taken  her 
part.    The  curse  was  answered  —  Augustine 


468  St.  Augustine 

believes  this  without  a  shudder  — and  the 
ten  children  were  seized  with  "a  horrible 
tremor  of  the  limbs."  They  then  dispersed 
over  the  Christian  world  to  seek  a  remedy 
at  some  miraculous  shrine.  After  fruitlessly 
visiting  the  shrines  of  Italy,  the  brother  and 
sister  had  been  warned  in  a  vision  (during 
sleep)  to  go  to  Hippo. 

For  fifteen  days  before  Easter  Paulus  and 
Palladia  visited  the  church  assiduously,  and 
excited  considerable  interest  and  sympathy. 
On  Easter  morning,  when  the  church  was 
thronged  with  worshippers,  the  youth,  who 
was  praying  at  the  shrine,  fell  insensible  to 
the  ground,  and  presently  awoke  completely 
cured.  The  people  ran  to  the  apse  and 
loudly  informed  Augustine  of  the  occur- 
rence. Augustine  had  the  youth  brought 
before  him,  and  then  preached  a  brief  ser- 
mon on  the  subject  amidst  ringing  applause 
from  the  people.  Paulus  dined  with  the 
bishop  that  day,  and  told  him  the  story  of 
the  malediction.  On  the  following  day  Au- 
gustine preached  again  on  the  miracle,  and 
made  the  two  strangers  stand  beside  his 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     469 

chair  whilst  he  narrated  their  story,  and 
pointed  out  the  contrast  of  the  still  infirm 
sister  and  the  recovered  youth.  But  Palladia 
persevered  with  her  prayers,  and  in  the 
middle  of  his  sermon  on  the  following  day 
—  he  was  telling  the  story  of  the  baby  — 
Augustine  was  apprised  by  loud  shouts 
from  the  vicinity  of  the  shrine  that  she  also 
had  been  cured  of  her  "  tremor."  It  is  with 
a  string  of  stories  like  this  that  Augustine 
concludes  his  great  work  The  City  of  God, 
which  he  completed  about  that  time.  Quan- 
tum mutatus  ab  Mo! 

Not  long  after  these  events  Augustine's 
congregation  was  agitated  by  a  less  agree- 
able sensation.  It  was  known  throughout 
Africa  that  the  Hippo  seminary  followed  a 
kind  of  monastic  rule,  and  in  point  of  fact 
it  had  furnished  a  dozen  of  its  ablest  and 
most  earnest  bishops  to  the  African  Church. 
Great  was  the  excitement,  therefore,  and 
deep  the  sorrow  of  Augustine  when  it  trans- 
pired that  one  of  his  priests  had  died  in 
possession  of  a  large  sum  of  money.  Au- 
gustine was  not  ignorant  of  the  existence 


470  St.  Augustine 


of  this  money,  but  Januarius,  the  deceased 
priest,  had  always  pretended  that  it  belonged 
to  his  daughter,  a  minor  living  in  a  nunnery 
at  Hippo.  Januarius  had  increased  his  guilt 
by  passing  over  both  his  children  and  be- 
queathing the  money  to  Augustine's  church. 
Augustine  never  accepted  such  legacies. 
However,  his  chief  concern  was  to  restore 
the  credit  of  his  seminary,  and  he  at  once 
instituted  an  inquiry,  and  discovered  that 
nearly  every  priest  and  deacon  under  his 
charge  possessed  slaves  or  houses  or  some 
other  property.  He  summoned  the  people 
to  the  basilica,  and  told  them  that  he  had 
been  forced  to  abandon  his  rule  of  ordaining 
no  cleric  who  would  not  consent  to  live 
under  the  system  of  personal  poverty  and 
common  ownership.  He  had  warned  his 
clergy  that  those  who  were  unwilling  to 
dispose  of  all  their  possessions  before  the 
Epiphany  could  continue  in  the  clerical 
office,  but  would  have  to  reside  outside 
the  seminary. 

On  the  morning  of  the  Epiphany  a  very 
large  congregation  gathered  in  the  basilica 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     471 

to  hear  the  result,  which  we  learn  from  his 
sermon  (No.  356).  All  his  clerics  had  de- 
cided to  part  with  their  possessions,  and  he 
was  therefore  encouraged  to  renew  the  rule 
of  poverty— the  root  of  the  whole  scandal. 
He  would  lay  hands  on  no  man  who  would 
not  submit  to  it :  "  He  may  appeal  to  a  thou- 
sand councils  against  me;  he  may  take  ship 
to  wherever  he  likes  [poor  Rome!];  he  can  go 
wherever  he  will;  but,  with  the  Lord's  help, 
he  shall  not  be  a  cleric  where  I  am  bishop." 
He  then  makes  an  interesting  and  chatty 
review  of  all  his  clergy.  This  one  is  going 
to  manumit  his  slaves  to-day;  that  one 
never  had  a  penny;  the  other  has  sold  his 
property,  or  holds  it  in  conjunction  with 
a  brother,  and  cannot  withdraw  for  the 
moment.  One  cannot  say  that  Augustine 
increased  in  practical  judgment  with  his 
advance  in  years. 

In  October  of  the  same  year  (426)  he  was 
summoned  to  Mileve  to  settle  a  dispute 
about  the  succession  to  the  bishop  of  that  see, 
who  had  died.  The  system  of  election  by 
the  people  was  so  imperfectly  organised,  and 


472  St.  Augustine 

lent  itself  so  readily  to  corrupt  practices,  that 
quarrels  were  frequent  and  sanguinary  con- 
flicts not  unknown.  On  his  return,  there- 
fore, Augustine  reflected  whether  he  might 
not  devise  a  means  of  averting  such  a  danger 
from  his  own  church.  He  was  now  in  his 
seventy-second  year,  and  could  not  expect 
to  serve  the  Church  militant  much  longer. 
Besides,  the  duties  of  his  office  pressed 
heavily  on  him,  and  left  him  little  time  for 
writing.  He  had  some  years  before  obtained 
a  promise  from  his  people  that  they  would 
not  approach  him  with  their  troubles  and 
disputes  on  five  days  out  of  the  week,  but 
the  promise  had  not  been  fulfilled.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  was  prevented  by  the  canons 
from  appointing  a  coadjutor ;  he  remembered 
how  the  rule  had  been  violated  in  his  own 
ordination.  However,  he  decided  to  ask 
the  people  to  accept  one  of  his  priests  as 
bishop-designate,  and  then  he  would  be  able 
to  surrender  most  of  his  occupations,  that 
were  not  strictly  episcopal,  to  his  future 
successor. 
Again,  therefore,   the  people  were  sum- 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     473 

moned  to  the  basilica  for  special  business. 
The  presence  of  two  brother  bishops  added 
solemnity  to  the  occasion,  and  all  the  clergy 
attended  in  the  sanctuary,  whilst  the  offi- 
cial notaries  prepared  to  make  a  record  of 
the  proceedings.  Augustine  reminded  the 
people  of  his  age  and  occupations,  and  pro- 
posed his  young  deacon,  Heraclius,  for  the 
post  of  what  we  should  now  call  "vicar-gen- 
eral," with  the  right  of  succession  to  the 
see.  "What  do  you  say  ?  "  he  asked  of  the 
people  before  him  ;  "let  me  hear  your  as- 
sent, and  let  the  notaries  record  it."  At 
once  there  rang  through  the  basilica  a  medley 
of  consenting  shouts,  as  the  notaries  duly 
register  in  the  report  of  the  sermon  (No. 
355).  "Thanks  be  to  God,  thirty-eight 
times,"  "Praise  be  to  Christ,  twenty-three 
times,"  "So  be  it,  twenty -five  times,"  are 
some  of  the  marks  of  approval.  Augustine 
proceeds  to  describe  the  merits  of  Heraclius, 
and  the  cry  of  "He  is  worthy  and  deserv- 
ing" fills  the  church  "eighteen  times." 
And  even  the  aged  Bishop's  simple  reminder 
of  his  approaching  end  is  greeted  with  a 


474  St.  Augustine 

''Long  life  to  Augustine,  thirteen  times." 
The  young  deacon  was  accordingly  ordained 
priest,  and  recognised  as  Augustine's  suc- 
cessor. We  must  accept  Augustine's  esti- 
mate of  his  virtue,  but  the  two  sermons 
of  his  which  we  have  do  not  reveal  any 
unusual  mental  gifts.  The  youth  had  little 
opportunity  to  shine  in  his  promised  dignity. 
Augustine  lived  for  four  years  afterwards, 
and  within  a  year  of  his  death  Hippo  was  a 
mound  of  smoking  ruins  and  its  par&cia  a 
desert  waste. 

By  that  time  there  were  five  churches  and 
a  few  minor  chapels  in  the  town,  and  about 
a  score  of  missions  in  the  parcecia.  The  or- 
dination of  Heraclius  must,  therefore,  have 
afforded  some  relief  to  the  Bishop,  and  he 
fell  upon  the  Pelagians,  as  we  have  seen, 
with  a  quite  youthful  energy.  With  the 
obstinacy  and  literary  work  of  Julian  in  Italy, 
and  the  semi-Pelagian  reaction  on  Augus- 
tine's own  views,  he  had  abundant  exercise 
ef  his  controversial  powers.  One  curious 
incident  that  occurred  about  this  time  will 
serve  to  illustrate  the  situation.    Two  monks 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     475 

of  the  monastery  of  Adrumetum  (near  Car- 
thage) were  travelling  in  Italy,  where  they 
secured  a  copy  of  Augustine's  letter  to  Six- 
tus.  They  brought  the  treasure  to  their 
monastery  on  their  return,  and  it  circulated 
amongst  the  brethren.  The  result  was  a 
grave  disturbance  of  the  peace  of  the  com- 
munity. Abbott  Valentine  wrote  to  tell  Au- 
gustine that  his  monastery  resounded  all 
day  with  the  arguments  of  two  rival  schools 
of  interpreters  of  the  letter,  and  Augustine 
had  to  send  a  long  explanation  of  his  teach- 
ing (Ep.  216)  and  two  works.  Eventually, 
two  of  the  monks  came  to  consult  him  at 
Hippo,  and  the  controversy  was  ended. 
About  the  same  time  there  came  to  Hippo  a 
monk  named  Leporius,  who  had  blended 
the  humanism  of  Pelagius  with  a  kind  of 
anticipation  of  the  humanism  of  Nestorius ; 
he  held  that  Mary  was  the  mother  of  Christ, 
but  not  of  God.  He  had  been  excommuni- 
cated for  his  errors  in  Gaul,  and  had  come  to 
Carthage  with  a  few  companions.  There 
Augustine  convinced  him  of  his  errors— a 
rare  triumph — and  had  the  satisfaction  of 


476  St.  Augustine 

seeing  him  publicly  recant  his  heresy  in  the 
church  at  Carthage. 

The  abjuration  of  Leporius  did  not  present 
an  unfamiliar  spectacle  to  the  people  of 
Carthage.  In  his  131st  sermon  Augustine 
invites  them  to  bring  obstinate  heretics  to 
the  clergy  whenever  they  encounter  them, 
and  a  public  confession  of  the  great  crime 
was  not  infrequently  enjoined.  But  there 
were  occasions  when  this  public  exhibition 
assumed  a  character  which  is  revolting  to 
the  modern  mind.  Such  an  incident  is  re- 
corded by  Possidius  (c.  16)  and  Augustine 
himself  in  his  work  On  Heresies  (c.  46).  The 
date  of  the  affair  is  not  given,  but  it  certainly 
occurred  in  Augustine's  later  years.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  Augustine  had  opened 
his  Christian  polemic  with  an  attack  on 
"the  morals  of  the  Manichees,"  but  had 
been  forced  by  the  Manichean  Bishop  Fortu- 
natus  to  confess  that  he  had  observed  no 
irregularity  during  his  association  with  them. 
He  still  hinted  in  his  works,  however,  that 
the  gross  stories  which  were  told  of  their 
elect  by  the  Catholics  were  quite  consonant 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     477 

with  what  he  knew  of  their  tenets.  The 
third  stage  of  the  controversy  began 
after  the  Imperial  decrees  against  heretics, 
when  captured  Manicheans  were  publicly 
interrogated  in  the  churches  and  courts 
on  the  secret  practices  of  their  elect,  or 
clergy. 

It  is  a  case  of  this  kind  that  Augustine  and 
Possidius  relate.  Two  Manicheans  had  been 
detected  at  Carthage,  and  Augustine  was 
requested  to  interrogate  them  before  the 
people.  The  first  was  a  girl  of  twelve 
years,  and  Augustine  solemnly  put  the  child 
through  a  searching  examination  on  the 
sordid  stories  that  were  current  about  the 
Manichean  sacrament — or  exsecr  amentum, 
as  the  Catholics  called  it.  The  girl  con- 
fessed what  Augustine  and  his  colleagues 
desired,  and  the  second  culprit  was  intro- 
duced and  confronted  with  the  confession. 
This  was  a  woman  of  maturer  years,  who 
claimed  to  be  a  nun,  or  sacred  virgin,  of  the 
sect,  and  indignantly  denied  the  charges. 
However,  they  had  a  rough-and-ready  way 
of  finishing  disputes  about  chastity  in  those 


478  St.  Augustine 

days.  The  woman's  claim  was  disallowed 
by  the  obstetrix,  and  she  thereupon  confessed 
that  the  incredibly  sordid  legend  was  cor- 
rect.1 This  picture  of  the  aged  bishop 
taking  a  child  of  twelve,  in  presence  of 
a  large  congregation,  through  details  that 
go  far  below  the  deepest  depths  of  our 
trials  in  camera,  is  omitted  with  great  deli- 
cacy by  the  hagiographers.  But  I  think 
it  tells  us  something  of  Augustine — pure 
as  his  intention  was— no  less  than  of  his 
times. 

One  other  experience  of  Augustine's  with 
regard  to  the  Manicheans  seems  to  belong 
to  this  period.  He  was  one  day  horrified  to 
discover  that  one  of  his  sub-deacons,  an 
elderly  man,  was  a  Manichee,  and  was 
secretly  propagating  his  faith.  This  Victo- 
rinus  had  been  ordained  at  Caesarea,  and 

1  Augustine  says,  De  Hoeresibus,  c.  xlvi. :  "Inspecta  \ab  obstetrice], 
et  quid  esset  inventa,  totum  Mud  turpissimum  scelus,  ubi  ad  ex- 
cipiendum  et  commiscendum  concumbentium  semen  farina  subster- 
nitur  [ad  conficiendam  Manichccorum  eucharistiam],  indicavit." 
According  to  Augustine,  the  later  Manicheans  held  that  the  elements 
of  light  were  largely  imprisoned  in  semine  animali,  and  they  certainly 
held  that  light  was  released  from  anything  when  it  was  eaten  by  the 
elect.     That  was  a  good  foundation  for  a  legend,  at  least. 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     479 

had  been  admitted  into  Augustine's  clergy; 
though  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  long  it 
was  before  he  was  detected.  The  old  man 
begged  Augustine  to  instruct  him  in  the  or- 
thodox faith  and  allow  him  to  retain  his 
order  at  Hippo,  but  he  was  expelled  from 
the  town  at  once.  Augustine  relates  this 
(Ep.  236)  to  Deuterius,  Bishop  of  Cassarea, 
whither  he  expects  the  sub-deacon  will  go. 
He  urges  Deuterius  not  to  admit  the  man  to 
penance  until  he  has  betrayed  the  names  of 
all  the  Manichees  in  the  province !  That 
detail  suffices  of  itself  to  relegate  the  occur- 
rence to  Augustine's  later  years. 

To  have  crushed  two  formidable  heresies 
and  a  schism  was  already  an  unprecedented 
service  on  the  part  of  Augustine,  but  he 
sprang  with  alacrity  at  every  other  living 
error  that  was  brought  to  his  notice,  and  in 
his  last  years  he  came  into  conflict  with  the 
Arian  (or  Unitarian)  heresy.  The  Goths  and 
Vandals  had,  as  is  well  known,  been  con- 
verted to  that  form  of  Christianity,  and  in 
428  a  detachment  of  the  Gothic  troops  was 
sent  to  Africa,  for  a  purpose  which  we  have 


480  St.  Augustine 

to  consider  presently.  An  Arian  bishop, 
Maximinus,  accompanied  the  troops,  and 
he  was  sent,  for  some  reason  or  other,  to 
Hippo  by  the  commander,  Sigisvult.  Here 
the  Arian  encountered  Augustine's  zealous 
lieutenant,  Heraclius,  and  was  induced  to 
hold  a  debate  with  Augustine  in  the  basilica. 
Maximinus  consented,  and  a  large  congre- 
gation, including  ''many  nobles,"  hastened 
to  the  church.  The  dialogue  has  been  pre- 
served, but  is  of  little  interest,  as  the  Arian 
tenets  are  familiar.  Augustine  is  arrogant 
and  overbearing  in  the  fulness  of  his  faith, 
telling  his  opponent  "  not  to  talk  so  much  if 
he  is  not  willing  to  learn  "  ;  and  Maximinus, 
though  a  model  of  politeness  and  cultured 
ease,  has  at  length  to  protest  that  Augustine 
"talks  like  a  man  who  has  the  Imperial  sup- 
port at  his  back,  not  according  to  the  fear  of 
God."  The  Arian  is  really  the  most  brilliant 
debater  Augustine  has  encountered,  and  has 
by  no  means  the  worse  of  the  duel.  But  he 
had  to  return  to  Carthage,  and  leave  the 
debate  unfinished.  Augustine  heard  that 
the  Arians  were  boasting  at  Carthage  of  a 


Episodes  of  his  Closing  Years     481 

victory,  so  he  returned  to  the  contest  with 
great  vigour  in  two  books  Against  Maxim- 
inus.  I  have  already  related  a  somewhat 
similar  experience  with  Count  Pascentius, 
another  Arian. 


Chapter  XVII 

A  Saddened  Termination 

'T'HERE  are  few  instances  in  ecclesiastical 
*  history  of  so  vast  and  impressive  a 
work  being  accomplished  by  one  man  as 
that  which  Augustine  achieved  in  the 
Church  of  Africa,  but  there  are  fewer  still 
where  the  work  has  tumbled  into  ruins  be- 
fore its  creator's  eyes.  That  was  the  sad 
fortune  of  Augustine  in  his  closing  year. 
At  the  very  moment  when  he  was  com- 
pleting his  rout  of  the  enemies  of  the 
Church  —  refuting  the  heresy  of  the  Goths  ; 
when  Manicheism  and  Donatism  were  al- 
most extinct  and  Pelagianism  was  in  its 
agony;  when  the  African  Church  was  at- 
taining a  supreme  and  worthy  distinction 
among  the  provinces  of  Christendom,  the 
army  of  the  Vandals  was  pouring  across  the 

Straits  of  Hercules,  and  the  flames  of  burning 

482 


A  Saddened  Termination        483 

temples  leaped  into  the  heavens.  Whilst 
Augustine  laboured  steadily  at  his  final  and 
comprehensive  destruction  of  the  Italian 
Pelagians  —  laboured  to  correct  the  errors 
or  atone  for  the  indifference  of  Rome  —  the 
hand  of  the  destroyer  was  laid  on  the 
Church  of  Africa,  and  was  to  take  it  to 
pieces,  stone  by  stone,  before  his  aching 
eyes.  The  last  picture  of  earth  that  he 
gazed  upon  was  that  of  the  Western  Church, 
for  whose  purity  and  power  he  had  sacri- 
ficed so  much,  disappearing  in  a  flood  of 
Arian  and  heathen  violence. 

Whatever  may  have  been  Augustine's 
feeling  as  to  the  more  philosophic  aspect  of 
this  stirring  devastation,  he  had  the  painful 
consciousness  that  an  error  of  his  own  fig- 
ured conspicuously  in  the  chain  of  human 
causes.  The  Count  of  Africa  at  that  time 
was  an  able  Roman  general  of  the  name  of 
Boniface,  whom  Procopius  calls  "the  last 
of  the  Romans."  Boniface  was  a  religious- 
minded  man,  and  had  a  profound  respect 
for  Augustine.  About  the  year  420  Boniface 
had  lost  his  wife,  and  had  thought  of  retiring 


484  St.  Augustine 

to  a  monastery.  Augustine,  in  his  singu- 
lar and  ill-blended  mixture  of  prudence  and 
zeal,  had  very  justly  urged  him  to  remain  at 
his  most  useful  post  in  the  Imperial  service, 
but  had  advised  him  to  make  a  private  vow 
of  chastity.  Boniface  had  done  so ;  and 
when,  in  428,  he  summoned  the  Vandals 
into  Africa,  Augustine  could  only  recall  with 
bitter  sorrow  that  but  for  his  own  counsel 
Boniface  would  be  praying  in  some  obscure 
monastery  instead  of  blundering  in  a  net  of 
political  intrigue. 

There  are  few  of  us  to-day  who  will  share 
Augustine's  grief  that  he  did  not  withdraw 
the  ablest  soldier  of  the  Empire  from  its 
service,  however  strongly  we  may  think  it 
would  have  averted  or  postponed  the  dis- 
aster. Moreover,  true  to  his  spiritual  ideal, 
Augustine  was  not  so  much  concerned  about 
the  material  disaster  as  about  Boniface's 
moral  lapse.  In  422  Boniface  had  been  sent 
to  Spain  on  an  Imperial  commission,  and 
there  the  blue  eyes  and  fair  locks  of  a  Van- 
dal princess  had  seduced  him  from  his  vow. 
There  was  this  consoling  circumstance,  says 


A  Saddened  Termination         485 

Augustine,  that  he  compelled  Pelagia  to  be- 
come a  Catholic  and  Trinitarian  before  he 
married  her.  However,  his  daughter  re- 
ceived Arian  baptism,  and  Arian  prelates 
had  influence  in  his  court.  It  was  even 
said  that  he  was  not  content  with  the  affec- 
tion of  his  own  wife.  Still  he  fought  the 
battles  of  the  Empire  with  great  skill  and 
vigour,  received  exceptional  honours  at 
Rome  in  425,  and  was  loyal  to  the  Empress- 
mother  in  her  most  anxious  moments. 

Boniface  had  a  rival,  Aetius,  who  is  asso- 
ciated with  him  by  Gibbon  in  deserving  the 
phrase  of  Procopius.  Aetius  was  a  jealous 
and  unscrupulous  courtier,  and  he  is  said  by 
Procopius  to  have  conceived  a  diabolical 
plot  when  he  saw  the  high  favour  of  Boni- 
face.1 He  reminded  Placidia,  the  mother  of 
Valentinian  III.,  of  Boniface's  connection 
with  the  Vandal  king,  and  suggested  that 
she  should  recall  him  from  Africa,  where  he 
might  raise  a  formidable  rebellion.     At  the 

1  De  Bello  Vandalico.  Mr.  Hodgkin  {Italy  and  Her  Invaders) 
thinks  the  story  not  above  suspicion,  but  some  such  key  to  Boniface's 
conduct  seems  necessary,  and  the  details  are  plausible  enough  on  the 
whole. 


486  St.  Augustine 

same  time  he  informed  Boniface  that  the 
recall  meant  disgrace  and  death  to  him,  if  he 
obeyed  it.  Boniface  refused,  and  the  re- 
fusal was  represented  to  Placidia  as  confirm- 
ing the  suspicion  of  Aetius.  Very  soon 
Boniface  was  in  open  rebellion,  and  defeated 
three  armies  that  were  despatched  against 
him.  But  he  knew  the  resources  of  the 
Empire  too  well  to  suppose  that  he  could 
permanently  maintain  the  diocese  of  Africa 
with  his  one  legion  and  a  few  less  disciplined 
auxiliaries.  He  sent  a  trusted  officer  to  treat 
with  the  Vandal  kings  in  Spain,  and  formed 
a  fatal  alliance  with  them.  Gonderic  and 
Genseric  stipulated  that  there  should  be 
an  equal  division  of  the  provinces  into 
three  parts  as  the  reward  of  their  services. 
They  had  already  secured  their  position  in 
Spain,  but  the  renowned  fertility  of  Africa 
easily  tempted  them  to  favour  the  alliance. 
Boniface  accepted  their  terms,  and  in  the 
spring  of  429  the  whole  Vandal  nation, 
with  whom  the  Alani  were  now  amalga- 
mated, moved  towards  the  southern  parts. 
The  Spaniards  gladly  afforded  the  use  of 


A  Saddened  Termination         487 

their  ships  for  the  crossing  of  the  straits, 
and  the  lawless  army  began  its  march  upon 
Hippo  and  Carthage. 

Augustine  did  not  write  to  his  friend 
Boniface  until  about  the  end  of  the  year  428. 
Never  had  there  been  a  case  in  which  his 
mediation  was  more  urgently  demanded, 
yet  he  seems  to  have  watched  the  develop- 
ment of  the  situation  with  a  feeling  of  help- 
lessness. He  explains  (Ep.  220)  that  he  was 
deterred  from  writing  to  Boniface  earlier  by 
the  fear  lest  his  letter  should  fall  into  the 
hands  of  his  enemies.  The  reason  is  not 
very  satisfactory,  but  certainly  the  situation 
was  one  of  extreme  delicacy  and  difficulty. 
When  he  does  at  length  find  a  trusty  mes- 
senger he  can  only  write  a  letter  which 
must  have  conveyed  neither  light  nor  conso- 
lation to  the  unfortunate  count.  He  frankly 
confesses  that  he  has  no  "  secular  counsel " 
to  offer ;  he  does  not  attempt  to  attenuate 
the  gravity  of  the  injury  that  has  been  done 
to  his  friend.  And  the  spiritual  counsel  he 
offered  was  hardly  likely  to  influence 
Boniface.    Unfortunately,  Augustine's  chief 


488  St.  Augustine 

concern  was  about  the  violation  of  his  vow 
of  continence,  and  so  the  main  point  of  his 
letter  is  to  induce  Boniface  either  to  aban- 
don his  wife  and  retire  to  a  monastery  or  to 
secure  her  consent  to  the  renewal  of  his  vow. 

Boniface  had  more  practical  friends  at 
Court,  and  these  found  an  opportunity  of 
bringing  Placidia  to  a  more  reasonable  atti- 
tude during  the  absence  of  Aetius  from 
Ravenna.  Count  Darius  was  sent  on  a 
pacific  message  to  Boniface.  They  met  at 
Carthage,  and  the  production  of  the  let- 
ters of  the  intriguer  at  once  removed  the 
cause  of  the  estrangement.1  Explanations 
were  speedily  given  and  accepted,  and  the 
Count  returned  to  the  allegiance  of  the 
empress.  But  when  Boniface  turned  to 
reason  with  his  Vandal  "allies,"  he  found 
that  he  had  delivered  Africa  into  their  fatal 
clutches. 

Gonderic  had  died,  or  had  been  murdered, 
shortly  before  the  Vandals  marched  down 
to  the  coasts  of  Spain,  and  the  fierce,  skil- 

1  Hatzfeld  quite  gratuitously  grants  Augustine  the  credit  of  the 
reconciliation. 


A  Saddened  Termination        489 

ful,  and  resolute  Genseric  was  left  in  supreme 
command.  Mr.  Hodgkin  says  that  if  Attila 
was  the  Napoleon  of  the  fifth  century, 
Genseric  was  certainly  its  Bismarck.  A  brave 
soldier  and  astute  general,  as  well  as  a  cun- 
ning and  unscrupulous  politician,  Genseric 
probably  saw  his  ultimate  goal  from  the  start. 
In  the  month  of  May  he  mustered  his  army 
of  fifty  thousand  warriors1  on  the  north-west 
corner  of  Africa,  and  directed  their  greed  and 
cruelty  towards  the  distant  cities  of  Numidia 
and  the  Proconsular  province.  The  tall, 
fair,  blue-eyed,  and  powerful  Teutons  had 
emerged  from  their  German  forests  some 
few  years  before,  when  the  cry  swept 
through  the  bleak  kingdoms  of  the  North 
that  the  steel  barrier  of  the  Empire  was 
yielding  at  length.  Less  brave  than  the 
Goths,  but  more  greedy  of  spoil  and  more 
fierce  in  victory,  they  had  cuttheir  way  across 
Gaul  and  the  Pyrenees,  and  had  formed  a 
comfortable  kingdom  in  Spain.  Now,  Gen- 
seric was  leading  them  into  the  very  granary 

1  Victor  says  eighty  thousand  all  told.     Mr.  Hodgkin  does  not 
think  there  were  more  than  twenty  thousand  soldiers. 


49°  St.  Augustine 


of  the  Empire,  and  they  gathered  their  skins 
about  them,  and  grasped  the  odds  and  ends 
of  arms  and  armour  they  had  picked  up  in 
their  march  through  civilised  lands,  and,  with 
their  wives  and  children,  spread  themselves 
over  the  rougher  plains  of  Mauretania.  Ad- 
venturous Goths  and  Spaniards  had  joined 
the  host  before  it  left  Spain,  and  now  the 
Moors  and  Getulians,  as  soon  as  they  realised 
that  this  strange  and  fierce  army  of  eighty 
thousand  souls  was  rushing  to  the  spoliation 
and  destruction  of  the  marble  cities  of  the 
hated  Romans,  flocked  to  the  Bible-standards 
of  the  Arian  savages.  The  chain  of  fortresses 
that  had  guarded  the  mountain-gates  of  the 
provinces  against  the  tribes  of  the  desert 
had  been  almost  abandoned  during  the 
intestine  war,  and  tributary  streams  flowed 
down  from  every  pass  as  the  army  swept 
along  between  the  mountains  and  the  sea. 
Soon  they  reached  the  broad  roads  that  the 
Romans  had  constructed  along  the  coast 
and  the  outlying  towns.  They  poured 
themselves  over  the  fields  and  orchards, 
leaving  only  a  waste  of  blackened  stubble 


A  Saddened  Termination        491 

and  uprooted  trees  behind  them.  They 
swept  down  on  the  cities  with  a  bitter 
scorn  for  their  civilisation  and  a  hatred  of  their 
Trinitarian  religion  and  an  insatiable  thirst 
for  gold.  Bishops  and  priests  hid  the  sacred 
vessels,  and  one  savage  would  hold  their 
mouths  open  with  a  stick  while  his  fellows 
poured  in  vingear,  or  salt-water,  or  filth, 
until  they  consented  to  reveal  their  treasures; 
then,  perhaps,  they  would  be  loaded  like 
mules  with  the  booty  their  churches  had 
provided,  and  goaded  along,  blinded  with 
lime  and  bleeding  with  wounds.  Here  and 
there  a  stronger  town  resisted  the  invaders, 
and  they  gathered  the  corpses  that  lay 
thick  on  their  path,  and  flung  them  to  rot  in 
thousands  under  the  walls,  until  famine 
and  pestilence  forced  the  gates.  Then 
came  a  more  frightful  carnage,  and  the 
flames  of  churches  and  palaces  lighted  the 
sated  vultures  to  their  feast.1 

Towards  the  end  of  the  year  Genseric  had 
reached  the  rich  towns  of  Numidia,  when 

1  Such,  at  all  events,  is  the  story  of  the  Christian  writers  Victor, 
Idatius,  and  Possidius.  I  have  previously  quoted  Salvianus  as  to 
their  chastity. 


492  St.  Augustine 

the  messengers  of  Boniface  came  to  tell  him 
that  the  war  was  over,  and  he  might  return 
to  Spain.  Before  him  lay  two  of  the  richest 
provinces  of  the  Empire,  and  behind  him 
lay  several  hundred  miles  of  blackened 
territory,  where  the  famished  beasts  wan- 
dered in  a  dying  frenzy,  and  the  fugitive 
inhabitants  trembled  in  the  mountain  caves, 
and  the  smoking  ruins  marked  the  sites 
of  prosperous  villages  and  opulent  towns. 
He  laughed  at  the  idea.  He  had  never 
intended  either  to  return  to  Spain  — that 
was  understood  —  or  to  occupy  the  com- 
paratively barren  Mauretania.  Boniface  of- 
fered him  a  heavy  ransom  in  the  name 
of  the  Empire,  but  a  far  greater  treasure 
glittered  before  the  eyes  of  the  troops,  and 
he  himself  had  little  inclination  to  be  prince 
of  Mauretania.  He  now  knew  the  resistance 
he  was  likely  to  meet.  His  wild  hordes  prob- 
ably contained  no  more  than  thirty  or  forty 
thousand  effective  and  well-armed  warriors. 
A  timely  and  determined  opposition  could 
have  flung  a  line  of  defence  from  the  Atlas 
to  the  sea  that  his  bands  could  not  have 


A  Saddened  Termination        493 

passed.  But  the  African  subjects  of  the 
Roman  Empire  had  no  more  idea  of  patriotic 
resistance  than  the  inhabitants  of  Italy. 
The  corrupt  and  degenerate  spirit  of  its 
closing  years  had  made  them  incapable  of 
lifting  a  spear.  They  looked  helplessly  to 
their  professional  soldiers  and  hired  troops 
—  who  had  been  butchering  each  other  in 
the  interest  of  a  wire-pulling  politician  whilst 
Genseric  was  sweeping  over  Africa.  They 
became  the  slaves  of  the  fierce  Teutons,  or 
fed  the  pestilence  or  the  vultures  with  their 
corpses,  or  fled  to  the  mountains,  or  rang 
out  their  ghastly  folly  in  their  amphitheatres 
and  circuses  (so  says  Salvianus),  whilst  the 
cries  of  their  dying  soldiers  and  the  guttural 
shouts  of  the  ruthless  savages  mingled  with 
their  laughter.  But  they  could  not  forge  a 
spear  or  handle  a  scythe.  And  so  Genseric 
knew  he  had  only  the  organised  troops  of 
Boniface  to  meet,  and,  after  a  short  truce,  he 
resumed  his  bloody  march.  Boniface  flung 
his  troops  in  vain  against  the  Vandal  army. 
He  lost  the  battle,  and  retreated  to  Hippo 
with  the  remnants  of  his  forces. 


494  St.  Augustine 

It  was  about  the  end  of  May,  430,  when 
Genseric  appeared  at  the  walls  of  Hippo. 
Augustine  had  nowenteredupon  his  seventy- 
sixth  year,  and  we  can  imagine  the  feelings 
with  which  he  would  look  out  from  the  be- 
sieged city.  From  the  hill  in  its  centre  one 
could  look  over  the  greater  part  of  his  puree- 
cia  and  a  good  deal  of  the  Numidian  pro- 
vince. He  could  see  that  the  work  of  his 
laborious  life  had  been  destroyed  in  six 
months.  In  the  general  devastation  the 
Arian  soldiers  had  plundered  and  fired  the 
Catholic  churches  with  a  peculiar  zeal. 
From  point  to  point  on  the  horizon,  where 
he  had  been  wont  to  mark  the  growth  of 
the  Church,  only  columns  of  smoke  now 
arose  from  the  ruined  towns  of  Numidia. 
Only  Cirta,  Hippo,  and  Carthage  had  suc- 
cessfully opposed  the  invaders;  and  these 
were  closely  besieged  and  had  little  human 
hope  of  ultimate  deliverance.  Hippo  occu- 
pied a  fortunate  position  from  a  military 
point  of  view,  as  I  have  already  described. 
Two  broad  rivers  protected  it  on  the  north 
and  south,  and  stout  walls  drawn  from  river 


A  Saddened  Termination        495 

to  river  defended  its  eastern  and  western 
boundaries.  But  in  the  distracted  condition 
of  the  Empire  there  seemed  so  little  prospect 
of  relief  from  beyond  the  seas  that  defeat 
could  only  be  a  question  of  time.  To  all 
human  appearances  the  end  of  the  African 
Church  was  in  view;  it  was  most  certainly 
the  end  of  Augustine's  work  that  was  writ- 
ten in  lurid  letters,  for  his  dying  eyes  to 
read,  over  the  face  of  the  country.  There 
were  those  who  found  a  certain  consolation 
in  the  belief  that  the  end  of  the  world  was 
heralded  in  this  devastation.  The  question 
of  the  end  of  the  world  had  always  been 
approached  with  hesitation  and  reserve  by 
Augustine.  He  saw  that  the  prophecies  of 
the  New  Testament  had  not  been  fulfilled. 
The  nations  had  not  been  converted  to 
Christ  (Arianism  being  as  rank  an  error  as 
polytheism),  and  certainly  the  Jews  still  held 
aloof.  He  could  not,  therefore,  seek  relief 
in  the  thought  that  his  life-work  was  only 
tumbling  to  pieces  in  the  general  dissolu- 
tion that  God  had  decreed  for  the  city  of 
men. 


496  St.  Augustine 

Gibbon  has  been  severely  taken  to  task 
by  Catholic  writers  for  hinting  that  Augus- 
tine may  have  been  troubled  in  his  last  days 
by  the  thought  that  the  persecution  of  the 
Donatists  had  assisted  the  invasion  by  pre- 
paring a  rebellious  body  at  home.  There  is 
really  no  weighty  evidence  of  an  alliance  of 
the  Donatists  with  the  invaders,  nor  does  it 
seem  likely  that  such  an  alliance  would  or 
could  be  formed  in  an  appreciable  degree. 
The  Vandals  wanted  no  Trinitarian  allies ; 
and  there  must  have  been  few  sincere  Do- 
natists left  in  430.  In  an  earlier  letter  (Ep. 
185)  to  Count  Boniface  Augustine  speaks  (in 
417)  of  an  Arian,  or  semi-Arian  element 
amongst  the  Donatists,  and  says  that  some 
of  them  were  disposed  to  fraternise  with  the 
Goths.  It  is  very  possible  that  some  of 
these  semi-Arian  Donatists  survived  until 
430,  and  were  admitted  to  comradeship  with 
the  wild  Vandals.  In  any  case,  the  number 
must  have  been  small,  and  cannot  have  had 
the  slightest  influence  on  the  issue.  The 
question  becomes  more  serious  when  we 
add  the  discontent  of  the  pagans  and  Mani- 


A  Saddened  Termination        497 

cheans.  As  we  saw,  when  Augustine  put 
on  the  black  tunic  in  392,  the  Catholics  were 
in  a  pitiful  minority.  The  vast  majority  of 
the  population  were  pagans,  Manicheans,  or 
Donatists.  It  was  chiefly  by  an  unhappy 
appeal  to  secular  force  that  Augustine  had 
effected  the  change,  and  a  good  deal  of  ill- 
feeling  must  have  lingered  amongst  the 
people.  Yet  even  here  impartial  reflection 
will  scarcely  find  a  serious  source  of  dis- 
affection to  the  Empire.  The  Vandal  smote 
down  the  pagan,  the  Manichean,  and  the 
Donatist  as  readily  as  he  felled  the  orthodox 
Trinitarian.  He  had  a  narrow  and  ferocious 
zeal  for  the  most  cultured  form  of  Christian- 
ity. At  the  most  one  can  only  think  that 
the  persecutions  inspired  by  the  Catholic 
bishops  to  Catholic  emperors  had  been  one 
additional  element  in  the  corroding  forces 
that  had  eaten  away  the  old  Roman  spirit, 
and  left  the  inhabitants  of  the  Empire  like 
flocks  of  sheep  before  the  invaders. 

It  is  not  probable  that  Augustine  was 
troubled  with  reflection  on  that  question  at 
all.    The  movements  of  the  barbarians  were 


49S  St.  Augustine 

guided  by  Providence,   in  his  belief;   and 
where  the  designs  of  Providence  were  in- 
scrutable,  he  would    trouble    little    about 
human  considerations.     Indeed,   Augustine 
continued  his  work  with  a  singular  calmness 
—  with  what  might  be  called  indifference  to 
the  critical  situation,  except  that  the  feeling 
was  grounded  on  a  deep  religious  faith.    We 
are  able  to  follow  him  in  his  last  days  be- 
cause his  pupil  and  biographer,   Possidius, 
was  in  the  beleaguered  town  with  him.    As 
the  invasion   advanced,   the   more  sincere 
clergy  were  seized  with  a  grave  perplexity. 
The  majority  of  their  people  could  not  take 
to  horse  like  themselves,  and  they  were  torn 
between  the  stories  of  the  Vandal  treatment 
of  priests  and  the  spiritual  interest  of  their 
flocks.     Augustine's  last  letter  is  a  reply 
(Ep.  228)  to  a  petition  for  advice  on  the  sub- 
ject from  the  Bishop  of  Thiave.     They  must 
remain  with  the  last  of  their  people,  was  his 
inevitable  answer.     However,  a  number  of 
bishops,   including  Possidius,   had  fled  to 
Hippo,  and  remained  there  with  Augustine 
when  the  Vandals  closed  round  the  walls. 


A  Saddened  Termination        499 

Hippo  was  a  mile  from  the  sea  (so  that  the 
sea-front  did  not  remain  open,  as  Gibbon 
supposes),  and  was  completely  surrounded 
by  Genseric's  forces.  It  is  hardly  likely  that 
in  the  city  of  Augustine  the  circus  and  am- 
phitheatre continued  their  games  during  the 
siege,  as  Salvianus  declares  of  Carthage. 
But  the  church  was  open,  and  Augustine 
preached  constantly  to  his  people  until  illness 
prevented  him.  And,  perhaps,  if  ever  one  is 
justified  in  quoting  that  well-worn  adage  of 
"the  ruling  passion,"  it  is  here.  Whilst  the 
Vandals  thundered  at  the  walls  Augustine 
was  absorbed  in  his  great  refutation  of  the 
latest  reply  of  the  Pelagian  Bishop  of  Ecla- 
num,  Julian.1 

In  the  third  month  of  the  siege  Augustine 
was  seized  with  a  fever.  Possidius  relates 
that,  as  he  lay  ill,  a  sick  man  was  brought 
to  him,  and  he  was  begged  to  lay  hands  on 

1  Here  Mr.  Hodgkin  makes  a  curious  slip  in  his  very  estimable  Italy 
and  Her  Invaders  (vol.  ii.)  He  says  that  during  the  siege  Augustine 
was  "  busily  employed  adding  a  '  Confutation  of  the  Emperor  Julian  ' 
to  his  vast  library  of  books."  It  was  the  "  Unfinished  work  against 
Julian"  (ofEclanum)  that  occupied  him.  He  never  troubled  much 
about  the  Emperor  Julian's  brilliant  failure  to  galvanise  into  life  the 
corpse  of  the  old  Roman  religion . 


500  St.  Augustine 

him  and  cure  him.  Augustine  refused  at 
first,  pleasantly  observing  that  if  he  had  the 
power  of  healing  the  sick  he  would  exert  it 
to  his  own  advantage.  However,  the  man 
urged  that  he  had  been  warned  in  a  dream 
to  approach  Augustine,  and  he  had  too  seri- 
ous a  view  of  such  communications  to  resist 
further.  He  laid  hands  on  the  man,  and  the 
disorder  was  miraculously  cured.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  features  of  Augus- 
tine's life  that  this  is  the  only  miracle  he  is 
recorded  to  have  worked.  Once  more,  I 
fear  the  Hipponenses  were  not  a  very  grate- 
ful or  appreciative  people.  Possidius  does, 
it  is  true,  vaguely  refer  to  some  cases  of  the 
expulsion  of  devils,  but  that  could  scarcely 
be  accounted  a  miracle  in  the  early  centuries 
of  the  Christian  era. 

Ten  days  before  his  death  Augustine  bade 
farewell  to  his  people  and  withdrew  into  a 
chamber,  where  the  penitential  Psalms,  writ- 
ten large,  hung  from  the  walls  by  his  bed- 
side. He  begged  his  friends  not  to  disturb 
him  except  when  the  physician  came  to  see 
him  or  his  food  was  brought.     Here  he  died 


A  Saddened  Termination         501 

on  the  28th  of  August,  430,  in  the  seventy- 
sixth  year  of  his  age,  "  sound  in  every  mem- 
ber of  his  body,  and  retaining  his  sight  and 
hearing  to  the  end."  The  strong  will  had 
sustained  the  slight  frame  through  sixty 
years  of  untiring  exertion,  and  left  it  with  an 
integrity  which  few  preserve.  He  left  no 
will,  says  Possidius,  for  he  had  nothing  to 
bequeath,  but  he  directed  that  his  books 
and  writings  should  be  retained  by  his 
church. 

The  faith  of  his  people  in  the  value  of  his 
intercession  was  rewarded.  After  fourteen 
months  the  Vandals  were  compelled  by 
famine  to  raise  the  siege,  and  most  of  the 
inhabitants  escaped  to  Italy.  But  Boniface 
was  again  defeated,  and  the  Vandals  re- 
turned and  set  fire  to  Hippo,  though  it  is 
recorded  that  they  spared  the  church  and 
library  of  Augustine.  Genseric  concluded  a 
peace  in  435,  consenting  to  leave  Carthage 
to  the  Empire,  but  he  soon  cast  his  treaty  to 
the  winds  and  subdued  the  whole  of  north- 
west Africa.  During  the  century  of  Vandal 
rule  and  Arian  persecution  that  followed,  the 


502  St.  Augustine 

African  Church  was  almost  extinguished. 
In  534  the  expulsion  of  the  Vandals  and  the 
patronage  of  the  Eastern  Empire  revived  its 
fortune  for  a  few  years,  but  the  country  was 
weakly  held,  and  only  for  a  few  miles  from 
the  coast;  and  the  Moors  and  tribesmen 
prevented  the  steady  restoration  of  its  insti- 
tutions. In  647  the  African  sun  first  flashed 
from  the  crescent  of  the  advancing  Arabs, 
and  by  the  end  of  the  seventh  century  the 
last  relics  of  Roman  civilisation  and  Christian 
worship  were  scornfully  swept  into  their 
long-sealed  tombs  from  Carthage  to  the 
Pillars  of  Hercules.  And  the  only  monu- 
ment that  remains  in  his  native  land  of 
Augustine's  great  work  is  a  strangely  per- 
sistent memory  of  "a  great  Christian,"  in 
whose  honour  the  Arabs  hold  a  quaint  cele- 
bration over  the  ruins  of  Hippo. 

Yet  in  the  world  of  thought  and  letters 
Augustine  has  left  an  enduring  memorial  of 
his  great  powers.  With  the  advance  of  our 
knowledge  of  the  vast  theatre  in  which  hu- 
man life  is  enacted,  and  with  the  increasing 
penetration  of  humane  feeling  and  ethical 


A  Saddened  Termination         5°3 

control  into  religious  thought,  even  Catholic 
theology  is  departing  more  and  more  from 
Augustine's  conception  of  the  Gospel  mes- 
sage. It  may  be  that  his  distinctive  opinions 
will  eventually  be  abandoned  by  all  but  the 
historian  or  the  pathologist  of  ideas.  But, 
whatever  judgment  they  pass  on  the  con- 
victions that  inspired  his  actions  and  the 
results  that  followed  them,  men  will  not 
refuse  their  admiration  to  one  who  devoted 
his  great  ability  so  strenuously  to  the  un- 
selfish prosecution  of  a  high  ideal  in  a  world 
of  deep  corruption.  And  the  writer  who 
can  captivate  a  Calvin  and  a  Boccaccio,  a 
Newman  and  a  Byron,  has  an  immortality 
assured,  whatever  creeds  or  anti-creeds  pre- 
vail. 


Bibliography 

THHE  life  of  St.  Augustine  is  chiefly 
*  gathered  from  his  works  (for  which  I 
have  generally  used  the  Migne  edition), 
especially  the  Confessions,  the  Letters,  and 
the  Retractations.  After  these  comes  the 
Vita  Beata  Augustini  of  his  disciple,  Possi- 
dius;  and  a  certain  amount  of  biographical 
and  supplementary  information  is  supplied 
by  the  chronicles  of  Idatius  and  Prosper, 
the  De  Schismate  Donatistarum  of  Optatus, 
the  Historia  Persecutions  Africaner  of  Vic- 
tor of  Vita,  and  the  De  Gubernatione  Dei 
of  Salvianus.  The  story  of  his  age  is  learned 
from  the  letters  of  Jerome,  Ambrose,  and 
Q.  A.  Symmachus ;  the  Res  Gestce  of 
Ammianus  Marcellinus;  the  Vitce  Philoso- 
phorum  of  Eunapius;  the  poems  of  Claudian, 
Prudentius,  and  Ausonius;  the  Saturnalia 
of  Macrobius;  and  the  histories  of  the 
later  Procopius.     All  these,  except  the  last- 

505 


506  St.  Augustine 


& 


named,  are  contemporary,  or  nearly  con- 
temporary, writers. 

Amongst  modern  biographies  of  Augus- 
tine the  chief  are  Cardinal  J.  O.  Von 
Rauscher's  Augustinus  {facile  princeps —  a 
recent  and  comprehensive  work) ;  M.  J. 
J.  F.  Poujoulat's  Histoire  de  S.  Augustin 
(1852);  C.  Bindemann's  Der  Heilige  Augus- 
tinus (1844);  and  the  Saint  Augustine  of 
an  anonymous  Irish  priest  (2nd  ed.,  1888,  a 
spirited  but  uncritical  work,  spoiled  by  the 
usual  effort  to  make  Augustine  a  modern 
Romanist).  The  St.  Augustine  of  A.  Hatz- 
feld  (1898)  is  a  vague  and  not  wholly  re- 
liable sketch,  and  the  St.  Augustine  of  Mr. 
C.  H.  Collette  (1883)  is  a  much  less  in- 
formed and  equally  interested  excursus 
from  the  anti-Romanist  side.  Few  others 
amongst  the  innumerable  sketches  are 
worth  reading.  The  life  in  vol.  xiii.  of 
Tillemont's  Memoires,  which  is  chiefly  fol- 
lowed by  the  Latin  life  of  the  Benedictines, 
is  a  model  of  laborious  and  reverent  re- 
search. 

Useful  assistance   in    reconstructing  the 


Bibliography  507 

age,  the  world,  and  the  thoughts  of  Augus- 
tine may  be  obtained  from  the  following 
works :  St.  Augustin,  by  L.  Grandgeorge 
(a  study  of  his  Platonist  ideas);  Die  Quellen 
Augustins,  by  C.  Frick;  Die  Geistesent- 
wickelung  des  H .  Augustinus  of  F.  Woerter; 
Saint  Augustin  of  H.  A.  Naville;  Augustin- 
ische  Studien  of  H.  F.  Reuter;  La  Philoso- 
phie  de  St.  Augustin  of  J.  F.  Nourisson; 
Historia  Critica  Philosophic  of  J.  Brucker; 
Mani  of  C.  Kessler;  Du  Polytheisme  Romain 
of  B.  Constant;  His  to  ire  Critique  de  Mani- 
chee  et  du  Manicheisme  of  J.  de  Beausobre; 
Romische  Mythologie  of  L.  Preller;  Com- 
ment at  io  Historioa  de  /Evo  Theodosiano  of 
P.  Muller;  Roman  Society  in  the  Last  Cen- 
turies of  the  Western  Empire  of  S.  Dill 
(1899);  Italy  and  Her  Invaders  of  T.  Hodg- 
kin  (1880) ;  Le  Christianisme  aux  trois 
Premiers  Siecles  of  E.  de  Pressense;  Histoire 
de  Civilisation  of  F.  Ozanam;  Tableau  de 
V Eloquence  Chretienne  of  A.  Villemain;  The 
Fall  of  Rome  of  J.  G.  Sheppard;  L'Eglise  et 
V Empire  Romain  of  De  Broglie;  Histoire  de 
la  Destruction  du  Paganisme  of  A.  Beugnot; 


508  St.  Augustine 


& 


Geschichte  des  Unter gangs  des  Heidenthums 
of  V.  Schultze;  La  Fin  da  Paganisme, 
Promenades  Archeologiques,  and  Roman 
Africa  ofG.  Boissier;  U Afrique  au  Cinqui- 
eme  Siecle  of  A.  Biechy;  Der  Fall  des 
Heidenthums  of  H.  G.  Tzschirner;  Heiden- 
thum  und  Judenthum  of  J.  J.  Dollinger; 
Untersuchungen  fiber  die  Africanische  Kirche 
of  A.  Schwartze;  Africa  Christiana  of  S.  A. 
Morcelli;  Roma  Antica  of  Nardini;  Pagan 
and  Christian  Rome  of  R.  A.  Lanciani; 
Ancient  Rome  of  R.  Burn;  Carthage,  Ruined 
Cities  of  Numidia,  and  The  Carthaginian 
Church  of  N.  Davis.  I  need  not  add  Gib- 
bon, and  the  magnificent  Handbuch  der 
Romischer  Alterthumer  of  Marquardt  and 
Mommsen. 


INDEX 


Abelard,  39,  44,  196 
Academics,  the,   130,   154,    182, 

184 
Actors,    moral   condition  of,  33, 

34 
Adeodatus,    130,    146,   181,   182, 

192,  218,  219 
Adrumetum,  the  monks  of,  448, 

475 
Ad  Simplicianum,  the,  396 
./Esculapius,  cult  of,  28,  31,  104 
Aetius,  485,  486 
Africa,  Roman,  2-9,  27-38 
African   Church,   the,    220,  221, 

230,  284,  et  seq. 
Agapce,  the,  89,   127,   141,  238- 

241 
Alaric,  314,  342 
Albicerius,  47 
Albina,  364-368,  443 
Albinus,  121 
Alypius,   68,  72,   135,   169,  175, 

192,  209,  231,  249,  256,  320 
Ambrose,  St.,  91,  108,  109,  112, 

138-142, 176-178,222,  328,  330 
influence  of,  on  Augustine, 

138-142 
Ammianus   Marcellinus,    44,    48, 

82,  87,  109 
Amphitheatre,  the,  32,  90 
Animal  suffering,  Augustine  on, 

242 
Annona    templorum,    the,    104, 

339 

Annotations  to  Job,  the,  379 
Antony  of  Fussala,  231,  461-463 
Aphrodite,  30 

Apiarius,  the  affair  of,  452-460 
Apuleius,  19 


Arabs,  the,  2,  226,  502 

Arbitrator,  Augustine  as  an,  265 

Argobastes,  329 

Arians,  Augustine  and  the,  479- 
481,  485 

Aristotle,  Augustine's  indebted- 
ness to,  1 54 

study  of,  53 

Asceticism,  61,  126 

Augustine's    idea    of,    211, 

250,  251,  465 

Astarte,  8,  28,  30 

Astrology,  45-5 1 ,  74 

Astronomy,  Augustine's  study  of, 
74,  75,  218 

Athens,  16 

Attalus,  314,  342,  343 

Augustinians,  the,  209 

Aurelius,  bishop,  32,  220,  430, 
439,  45 »,  454 


Baal-Hammon,  9,  28,  31 

Ballad  against  the  Donatists,  237 

Baptism    of  Augustine,    20,    43, 

192 
Bath,  the,  6,  89,  181 
Baur  on  Augustine,  376,  402 
Bayle  on  Augustine,  251 
Beugnot,  331,340,  342,344 
Birth  of  Augustine,  10 
Boissier  (quoted),  4,  42,  94,  350 
Boniface,   Pope,    445,  456,    457, 

462,  463 
Boniface,    the  general,    483-488, 

492,  493,  496,  501 
Botrus,  286,  287 
Breviary,  the  Roman,  399 
Brucker  on  Augustine,  386 


509 


IO 


Index 


Oecilian,  287,  288,  291 

Calama,  riot  at,  340 

Calculo,  the,  12 

Calvin  and  Augustine,  449 

Canons  of  Sardica,  the,  453,  457 

Captives,    Augustine  sells  sacred 

vessels  to  liberate,  267 
Carthage,  26-38,  71 
councils  of,    300,  430,  436, 

452,  456 

great  conference  at,  315-321 

Cassian,  447,  448 
"  Cassiciacum,"  179 
Caterva,  the,  at  Caesarea,  456 
Catholics,  origin  of  the  name,  234 
Celestius,  286,  287 
Christianity     and     the     cultured 

pagans,  122,  3=54,  355 
in  the  fourth  century,  8,  22, 

57,    108-131 
Chrysostom,  St.,  36,  91,  123 
Church,   constitution  of  the,    in 

the  fourth  century,  293,  294 
Church  life  in  the  fourth  century, 

220,  222,  223,  229,  230,  238, 

239,  260,  261,  334,  367,  392, 

393 
Circumcellions,    the,    296,    297, 

301,  306 
Circus,  the,  32,  72,  88,  90,  103 
Cirta,  synod  of,  289 
City  of  God,  the,  46,  356-363 
Claudianus,  99 
Ccelestine,  Pope,  462,  463 
Ccelestis,  temple  of  the,    18,  31, 

335 
Coelestius,    417-419,    425,    426, 

434,  435.  446 

Collette,  Mr.,  260 

Colonia,  4 

Communism  in  Augustine's  semi- 
nary, 250,  254,  255,  469,  470 

Competentes,  the,  iqo 

Confession  in  the  fifth  century, 
261 

Confessions,  the  (quoted),  10,  13, 
24,  39,  4i,  54,  67,  69,  112, 
151,  208,  251 

the,  analysis  of,  195-199 


Constantine,  conversion  of,  108 
Contra  Academicos,  the,  47,  66, 

68,   184 
Contra      Adimantum       Mani- 

chceum,  the,  383 
Contra     adversarium    Legis    et 

Prophetarum,  385 
Contra  Cresconium,  the,  305 
Contra  duas  epistolas  Pelagian- 

orum,  the,  445 
Contra  epistolam    Donati,   the, 

237,  299 
Contra    epistolam    Parmeniani, 

the,  305 
Contra  Faustum,  the,  381-384 
Contra  Judceos,  the,  385 
Contra  Julianum,  445 
(imperfectum),    the, 

499 
Contra  literas  Petiliani,  the,  302 
Contra  Maximinum,  the,  481 
Contra  mendacium,  the,  391 
Contra  partem  Donati,  the,  302 
Contra  Priscillianistas   et  Ori- 

genistas,  the,  385 
Contra       Secundinum      Mani- 

chceum,  the,  384 
Conversion  of  Augustine  (quoted 

from  Confessions),  169-176 

significance  of  the,  165,  166 

Cresconius,  305 
Crispinus  of  Calama,  303 
Cur  tales,  5,11 
Cybele,  cult  of,  30,  103,  128 
Cyprian,  St.,  295 

Damasus,  110,  112,  124,  126 

Davis,  Mr.  (quoted),  30 

Death  of  Augustine,  500 

Debates  of  Augustine,  the,  234, 
247,  269,  300,  455 

De  Broglie  (quoted),  94,  108,  1 14, 
177,  222 

Decuriones,  5 

Demetrias,  370-372,  44: 

Descartes  anticipated  by  Augus- 
tine, 362 

De  agone  Christiano,  the,  396 

De  apto  et  pulchro,  the,  70 


Index 


5ii 


De  baptismo,  the,  305 

De  beata  vita,  the,    185 

De  bono  conjugali,  the,  304,  387 

De  bono  vidnitatis,  the,  390 

De   catechi^andis   rudibus,   the, 

381 
De    conjugiis    adulterinis,    the, 

De  consensu  Evangelist  arum,  the, 

A'  continentia,  the,  386 

A?  caw  ^>ro   mortuis  gerenda, 

the,  395 
A?  diversis   qucestionibus   octo- 

giutatribus,  the,  396 
De  divinatione  dcemonum,  the, 

396 
De  doctrina  Christiana,  the,  383 
D<?  cfo/zo  perseverantice,  the,  65, 

448 
.A?  duabus  animabus,  the,  234 
De  fide  et  operibus,  the,  396 
De  fide  et  symbolo,  the,  396 
De  fide  rerum,  the,  396 
A?  Genesi  ad  liter  am,  the,  2 1 7 
Dtf  Genesi :    contra  Manichceos, 

the,  217 
£te   gratia    Christi    et    peccato 

origiuali,  the,  443 
De  hceresibus,  the,  385,  478 
De   immortalitate   animce,    the, 

190 
De  liber 0  arbitrio,  the,  202,  241- 

244 
De  litera  et  spiritu,  the,  424 
De  Magistro,  the,  219 
De  mendacio,  the,  391 
De    meritis    et    remissione  pec- 

catorum,  the,  423 
De  moribus  Ecclesice,  the,  202 
De  moribus  Mauichceorum,  the, 

75,  202 
De  musica,  the,  217 
De  natura  boni,  the,  383 
De  natura  et  gratia,  the,  425 
De  nuptiis  et  concupiscentia,  the, 

391,  44=5 
£te  ocio  Dulciiii   qucestionibus, 
396 


A?  o/>£/r  monachorum,  the,  392 

D<?  or  dine,  the,  187 

A?  patientia,  the,  396 

A?  perfectione  humance  justitice , 

the,  425 
A  prcedestmatione  sanctorum, 

the,  448 
A?  quantitate  animce,  the,  201 
A?  s<zwcta  virginitate,  the,  387 
A?  Trinitate,  the,  394 
A?  ww/co  baptismo,  the,  305 
A?  utilitate  credendi,  the,  130, 

138,  232 
A?  vera  religione,  the,  162,  205, 

214 
Dill,   Mr.  (quoted),   17,  94,  in, 

370 
Diospolis,  synod  of,  428,  430 
Divination,  45-51,  74 
Divorce,  Augustine's  view  of,  391 

in  Roman  law,  95 

Dods,  Mr.  Marcus  (quoted),  ^8, 

163,  402 
Donatism     and     the     Anglican 

Church,  324 
Donatists,  the,  9,    10,  234,  236, 

284-324 
and  the  Vandals,  313,  314, 

496 
persecution  of  the,  296,  298, 

301,  308-313,  321 
violence  of  the,  244,   293, 

297,  3°3,  3'°,  322 
Donatus,  43,  292 

Education  in  the  Roman  world, 

12-22,  43,  44,  55 
Emeritus  of  Caesarea,  455 
Enarratio  in  Psalmos,  the,  259, 

378 
End   of  the   world,    Augustine's 

view  concerning,  389,  495 
Endelechius,  102 
Enneads,  the,  155 
Epicureanism,  148-150 
Episcopal  courts,  264 
Erudition  of  Augustine,  153,  159, 

160,  376,  402 
Eucharist,  Augustine  on  the,  382 


5i2 


Index 


Eugenius,  328-530 

Eulogius,  71 

Evil,  Augustine  on  the  nature  of, 

1 37,  «57j  ,87,  202,  215,  241, 

362,  407,  420,  421 
Evodius,  180,201,209,  231,  241, 

430 
Evolution   of  Augustine's  ideas, 

403-409 


Faith  and  reason,  Augustine  on, 
205,  233,  384,  406,  465 

Fall  of  Rome,  91,  348-353 

Augustine  on  the,  348,  355, 

356 

causes  of  the,  350 

Christianity   and  the,  349- 

353 
Fascius,  incident  of,  262 
Faustinus  of  Potentina,  452,  456- 

459 
Faustus  of  Mileve,  76,  382,  384 
Felix,  debate  with,  269 
Felix  of  Aptunga,  291 
Fiscal  system  of  Rome,  5 
Flavianus,  97,  1 16,  329 
Floralia,  the,  8,  104,  128,  341 
Fortunatus,  204,  235 
Fortunius,  debate  with,  301 
Free  will,  Augustine  on,  201,  215, 

241-243,  448,  449 
Friendship,   in   the    Confessions, 

68,  69 

Genesis,  Augustine  on,  216,  217, 

362,  379 
Genseric,  38,  486,  489,  491,  493, 

494,  499,  501 
Gibbon  (quoted),  36,    in,    177, 

178,  323,  324,  330,  340,  349, 

350,  352,  357,  369,  449,  496, 

499 
Gildo,  296 
Gonderic,  486 
Gothic  invasion,  the,   314,  342- 

344 
Grace,    Augustine's   doctrine   of, 

243,  419-422,  447 


Grammar,  Augustine's  work  on, 

191 

study  of,  14,  15,  44 

Grammaticus,  the,  14 

Gratian,    18,   67,    101,    110-113, 

328 
Greek  language,  study  of  the,  16, 

17 

Hamilton,  Sir  W.,  on  Augustine, 

377 

Harnack  (quoted),  57,  59 

Hatzfeld  (quoted),  41,  222,  488 

Health  of  Augustine,  251,  252 

Hebrew,  study  of,  1  7 

Hefele  (quoted),  453,  457 

Heraclian,  313,  314,  343,  344, 
368,  372 

Heraclius,  Augustine's  successor- 
elect,  473,  480 

Heros,  427,  436 

Hilarion,  St.,  49 

Hippo,  221 ,  225-227 

siege  of,  494,  498,  499,  501 

Hodgkin,  Mr.  (quoted),  5,  38, 
485,  489,  499 

Honorius,  34,  438,  439 

decrees   of,  31 1-3 15,    321, 

334,  340,  343,  346 

Hortensius,  the,  53,  54,  84 

Hypatia,  45 

Ideas  of  Augustine,  comprehen- 
sively considered,  399-409 

Infant  baptism,  Augustine  on, 
242,  408,  423 

Innocent,    Pope,    50,   430,    432, 

435 
Isis,  cult  of,  107,  128 

Jerome,  St.,  26,  16,  43,  49,  82, 
116,  120-123,  200,  203,  213, 
223,  275-283,  331,  4»2,  413, 
416,  426,  427 

corresponds  with  Augustine, 

275-283 
Jerusalem,  synod  of,  426 
Julian  of  Eclanum,  444-446,  449 
Julian,  the  emperor,  109,  449 


Index 


5i3 


Juliana,  370-372,  44» 
Justina,  140,  176,  177 

Kingsley,  Mr.,  55,  211,  215,  253 

Lcetitice,  the,  238-241 

Lastidianus,  180 

Lazarus,  427,  436 

Legacies,     Augustine's     trouble 

over,  256,  257 
Leibnitz  on  Augustine,  376 
Leporius,  the  monk,  475,  476 
Letters  of  Augustine,  270-283 
Libyans,  the,  2,  3 
Licentius,    134,    180,    181 ,    186, 

209 
Liter ator,  the,  12 
Liter  atus,  the,  14 
Lucilla,  287,  288,  291 
Lupercalia,  the,  103 
Luxury  of  the  Romans,  82-86,  91, 

96 
Lying,  Augustine  on,  391 

Macrobius,  82,  87,  95,  96 

Madaura,  20,  338 

Majorinus,  292 

Mani,  59 

Manichean  sacrament,  the,  477 

Manicheans,  morality  of  the,  75, 

»07,  203,  235,  476 

publicly  examined,  477,  478 

Manicheism,  57,    58-65,    72-78, 

107,    156,  157,  201-204,  215, 

234 
Manlius,  Theodorus,  152 
Manumission  of  slaves,  263 
Marcellinus,  315,  317-321,  354, 

373,  374,  423 
Marculus,  the  heretic-saint,   310 

(note) 
Marinus,  373 
Marriage,    Augustine's  view    of, 

387-392 
Martyrology,  the  Roman,  310 
Martyrs,  cult  of,  215,  288,  466 
Mary,    Augustine's    attitude    to- 
wards, 399 


Mass,  the,  261,  382 
Mathematics,  study  of,  44 
Mattarii,  the,  62- 
Maximinus,  letter  to,  236 

the  Arian,  480 

Megalius  of  Calama,  246,  320 
Melania,  364-368,  443 
Memonce  martyrum,  the,  238 
Mensurius  of  Carthage,  286 
Milan,  134,  135 
Mileve,  synod  of,  430 
Military  service  and  Christianity, 

Miracle,    Augustine's    sole,    499, 

500 
Miracles  at  Hippo,  466-469 
Augustine    on,    205,     207, 

466-469 
Mistress  of  Augustine,   the,    39, 

143,  145,  146 
Mithraism,  57,  58,  105-107,  200, 

382 
Monastery  of  Augustine,  the,  207, 

231 
Monasticism   in   the  West,   209- 

213,  392-394 

Monica,  St.,  10,  19,  23,  24,  43, 
66,  79,  140,  141,  145,  146, 
181,  183,  194 

death  of,  1 94 

Morality  of  Christians  at  Car- 
thage, 36,  37,  40,  41,  49;  at 
Rome,  49,  50,  123-129 

of  pagans,  37,  38,  93-100 

of  the  African  bishops,  286- 

292 

of  the  Manichees,  61,   107, 

204,  235,  477       m 

Mosheim  on  Augustine,  402 

Mozley  on  Augustine,  402 

Municipal  life  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, 4.-6,  11,14 

Municipium,  4 

Mythology,  Roman,  104,  105 


Nebridius,  50,  51,  71,  134,   181, 

209,  214,  218 
Nectarius,  341 


5H 


Index 


Neo-Platonism,  57,  58,   122,  154, 

164 
Neo-Platonists,  influence  of  the, 

on    Augustine,    153,    155-160, 

189 
Nourisson  (quoted),  73,  154,  155, 

190,  196,  242,  401,  447 

Olympus,  310,  311,  339,  342 

Optatus  of  Mileve,  285,  287 

of  Thamugade,  296 

Ordination  of  Augustine,  224,  246 

Origin  of  the  soul,  views  of  Je- 
rome and  Augustine,  283 

Original  sin,  Augustine  on,  391, 
408,  420,  425 

Orosius,  356,  413,  426,  427,  429 

Ostia,  Augustine  at,  193 

Paganism,  8,   21,  22,  28-31,  58, 

101-117,  325-347,  382 
fall  of,  108-117,  200,  325- 

347  .    a   . 

Papal    claims   not   recognised   in 

Africa,  293,300,  322,  431,433, 

434,  438,    45 1-453,   45M60, 

462,  463 
Pascentius,  debate  with,  270 
Patricius,  10,  19,  23,  27 
Paula,  118,  126 
Paulinus  of  Pella,  41 
of  Nola,  St.,  123,  208,  239, 

274,  413,  416,  441 
Pelagianism,  243,  413,  419-422, 

43 >,  442,444-446 
Pelagius,  371,  372,  411,414-418, 

425-430,  435,  436,  440,    441, 

443,  446 

works  of,  416 

Persecution,      Augustine's     view 

of,    299,    302,    304-308,    323, 

tt}>  334,  337 
Petihan,  163,  302,  319,  323 
Petrarch  on  Augustine,  259,  378 
Philanthropic  work  of  Augustine, 

262,  265-267 
Philosophy,  study  of,  in  the  fourth 

century,  17,  18,  55 


Pinianus,  364-368,  443 

Plato,  Augustine's  debt  to,   153, 

154,   159,  160,    189,  208,  216, 

404 
Augustine  on,  160,  162,  208, 

216,  301,  404 

study  of,  55,  153 

Plotinus,    Augustine's    indebted- 
ness to,  155-159 
Polygamy,  Augustine's  view  of, 

388-390 
Pontitianus,  168 
Pope,   use   of  the  word   in   the 

fourth  century,  295 
Possidius,  67,  221,  228,  246,  247, 

250,  254,  303,  341,  430,  498- 

501 
Poujoulat  (quoted),  58,  179,  271, 

323,  388 
Poverty   of  Augustine's    clergy, 

255,469-471 
Practical  ability  lacking  in  Augus- 
tine, 253 
Prastextatus,  94,  97,  116 
Prayer  for  the  dead,  195,  395 
Preacher,  Augustine  as  a,  258 
Pressense,  M.  de,  285,  292 
Priapus,  cult  of,  34,  105 
Proba  Faltonia,  370-372 
Prosper,  31 
Psalmus  contra  partem  Donati, 

the,  237 
Publicola,  the  letter  to,  273 
Punic  language,  the,  15,  17,  260 

religion, the,  9,  28,  30,  31 

Purgatory  in  Augustine,  395 
Purpurius,  289-291 
Pythagorean  ideas  in  Augustine, 

187,  218 


Qucestiones  Evangeliorum,  the, 
381 

Rations,  public,  7,  88 
Rauscher,  Cardinal  Von  (quoted), 

47,  I92,44i,453 
Relics,  cult  of,  178,  393,  465 


Index 


5i5 


Retractations,  the,  397,  398 
(quoted),  160,  205,  242,  282, 

283 
Rhetoric,  study    of,    17-19,   44, 

132 
Roman   clergy,  morality  ot   the, 

122-126 
See,  references  to,  293,  300, 

320,  430-433,  434,  436,  438, 

45»~453,  456-400,  4°2,  463 
Romanianus,    27,    66,   68,    134, 

147,  205,  209,  215,  216 
Rome,  81  et  seq. 
Rosenbaum,  30,  100 
Rousseau,    Confessions    of,    146, 

196 
Rufinus,  414,  417 
Rule  of  St.  Augustine,  the,  209, 

464 
Rusticus,  180 
Rutilius  Numantinus,  353 

Saints,  Augustine's  view  of  cult 

of  the,  400 
Salvianus,  3,  8,  32,  35,  36,  38, 

40,  81,  369 
Sanctuary,  the  law  of,  261 
Saturn,  cult  of,  28,  31 
Saturnalia,  the,    of  Macrobius, 

95,  96 
Saturnalia,  the,  8,  103,  128,  341 
Scandals  in  Augustine's  seminary, 

231,249,  255,  469,  470,  478, 

479 
Scepticism  of  Augustine,  130,  131, 

163 
Schools,  the  Roman,   12-18,  21, 

43,  44,  55,  78,  79,  132 
Schultze  (quoted),  8,  1 1 1,  331 
Scripture,  study  of,  56,  57,   142, 

154,  182,  376,  381 
Secundus  of  Tigisis,  289,  291 
Seminary  of  Augustine,  the,  232, 

249 
Semi- Pel agianism,  446-449 
Sermons   of  Augustine,    33,  36, 

232,  240,  241,  244,  258,  332 
Shorthand  in  the  Roman  world, 

>83 


Simplicianus,  166,  167 
Sixtus,  Pope,  429,  439,  441 
Slavery,  Augustine's  view  of,  263 
Soliloquies,  the,  54,  187 
Souk-Arras,  1 
Speculum  Scripturce  Sacrce,  the, 

382 
Spurious    Augustinian    literature, 

'9i,  398,  399 
Stephen,  St.,  relics  of,  465 
Stilicho,  310,  314,  332,  339 
Stoicism,  149 

influence  of,  83,  94,  122 

Style  of  Augustine,  188,  189 
Symmachus,  27,  82,  89,  97,  112, 

1 13,  115,  1 16,  134 
Synesius,  220,  254 
Suffecte,  riot  at,  337 

Table,  discipline  at,  250-253 
Tanit,  28,  30,  31 

priests  of,  30 

Teaching  of  Augustine,  401 
Telemachus,  monk,  128 
Thagaste,    1,  4,   10,    19,  23,  66, 

205 
Theatre,  the,  33 
Theodosian  code,  the,  44 
Theodosius,   109,  326,  331,  332, 

352 
Trigetius,  134,  180,  186 

Urbanus  of  Sicca,  451,  456,  457 

Valens,  48 

Valentinian  I.,  21,  48,  109 

II.,  1 10,  1 12,  328 

Valerius,  bishop,  221,  228,  229, 

247 
Vandals,  the,  38,  486,  488  . 

Vectigalia  templorum,  the,  104} 

339 
Verecundus,  179,  181  ' 

Victorinus,  153,  167 
Victory,  statue  of,  111-115,  329 
Vincentius,     the    Rogatian,    39, 

306 
Vindicianus,  50,  71 


5i6 


Index 


Virginity,  Augustine  on,  387,  388, 

390 
Volusianus,  35} 

Woman,  Augustine's  attitude  to- 
wards, 208, 2 1 3,  259,  380,  389- 
39 1 


Works  of  Augustine,  number  of, 
183,  190,  191,  268,375 

Zosimus,     Pope,   434-440,    444, 

445,  453,  454,  4*6 

the  historian,  1 1 1,  312,  331, 

340 


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St.  Augustine  and  his  age, 


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